Research covered by the CBC has found that children and teens that stay up late and have a lot of activity late at night are more prone to behavior problems and rule-breaking. Essentially, the authors concluded that,
“Eveningness contributes to lack of sleep, and this in turn causes problems such as lack of control and attention regulation, which are associated with antisocial behaviour and substance use,” Susman said.”
I would propose a different explanation. Kids who are staying up late are likely to have parents that either stay up late or are bad at setting boundaries and limits (a permissive parenting style). When kids grow up without parents being able to enforce limits like a regular bed time, the kids are then more likely to have behavioral and substance-abuse problems later in life. How easily it is to forget these simple ideas in the age of biology.
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3 Comments to
“Late Nights & Behavior Problems”
Anecdotally, while I’ll admit my parents were probably permissive I’d like to contend that I stayed up late as a result of ostracization due to my antisocial behaviours (which in turn were partly because I started off shy and a bit angry, and partly because everyone else aggravated those parts of me).
I mean, My entire time at highschool consisted of me spending as much time on the Internet as possible, because I had friends there and not in real life.
Certainly young children need to have clearly defined bedtimes that are reinforced by parents. That said, there are some children whose biological clocks seem to dictate later evening wakefulness. In my many years of experience counseling families, I always tell parents there are three things they cannot force their children to do: eat, sleep, or make on the toilet. They can force them to be at the table, to be in their bedroom, or to be on the toilet, but they can’t force them to eat, sleep or actually produce there.
Providing clear structure and boundaries for children, even through adolescence, is very important. However, as children become teenagers, research has also demonstrated that their wake/sleep rhythms change and that most adolescents tend to want to be awake later at night and sleep later in the morning.
I think it is essential to be clear about these distinctions…providing structure, limits, and boundaries is important, but forcing sleep on teenagers is pretty impossible!
“That said, there are some children whose biological clocks seem to dictate later evening wakefulness.” — Any professional who is counseling people on issues related to sleep is being irresponsible and practicing outside their area of competence if they are not aware of the mountain of research on sleep and are therefore falling into the trap of thinking that some people are biologically hardwired with sleep patterns for “eveningness.” The worlds foremost researchers on this topic have clearly shown that “eveningness” is the result of long-standing habits not biological preprograming. “Evening” folks are out of step with their body’s natural cycles, and this results in a host of health problems. The time to teach good sleep habits is during infancy and toddler years, not after fifteen years of bad habits. Counselor who are not aware of the science in the sleep arena are likely to harm their clients through ignorance.
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 19 Jul 2007
