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Schoolkids don’t get enough sleep, foundation says

By Loa Iok-Sin
STAFF REPORTER
Saturday, Jul 12, 2008, Page 2

While a good night’s sleep is essential for children to develop a healthy body and mind, a study by the Children’s Welfare League Foundation found that a large number of children in the country don’t get enough of it.

“I usually go to bed at around 11pm because I have to finish my homework and study before going to sleep,” a sixth-grader nicknamed Little Da (小達) said at a news conference in Taipei yesterday.

“But I wake up quite often during the night because my parents make a lot of noise watching TV,” Little Da said.

Another sixth-grader, nicknamed A-Hsun (阿勳), said he goes to bed at midnight but very often stays awake for an hour or so, thinking about schoolwork.

Not every child stays up late because of schoolwork. A girl nicknamed Little Ming (小明) said she goes to to bed at 12am because “I stay up to watch TV.”

A study conducted between April and May of more than 1,100 elementary schoolchildren in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades nationwide showed that 45 percent of them went to bed after 10pm on weekdays, while 89 percent of respondents said they went to sleep later on weekends and holidays.

“Not having enough sleep or not having enough quality sleep can have a very bad long-term impact on children, since their bodies and minds are still developing during this period,” said Huang Yu-shu (黃玉書), a child psychiatrist at Chang Gung Children’s Hospital.

“[Not having enough sleep] may reduce their levels of growth hormones, have an impact on their learning capacity, and even cause psychological problems in the future,” Huang said.

The study also found that parents could be responsible for their children’s lack of sleep.

“We found that nearly 60 percent of parents go to bed later than their kids, which may have a bad influence on the children,” foundation executive director Alicia Wang (王育敏) told the press conference.

“Some parents take their kids to the night market with them, some share late-night snacks with them, some watch TV with their kids — all these delay a child’s bedtime, and would get the kids used to going to sleep late,” Wang said.

“Try not to have your kids do exciting things before going to sleep — such as watching TV, listening to music, or eating spicy food,” Wang said. “Such activities could cause so-called ‘junk sleep’ and make kids even more tired after sleeping.”

Some tips to help children sleep better, Wang said, are to have “kids drink milk or yogurt, eat bananas, oat crackers or oatmeal,” because these food items contain chemicals that may help improve the quality of sleep.
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