Question: I have two elementary school children that want to stay up late, even on school nights. Is it true that staying up late at their ages is unhealthy and stressful? Please verify if this is true or not.

Answer: I emphasize with your predicament regarding late night bedtime for elementary school age children. I have two boys myself and must battle to get them to bed early every school night. The answer to this for your children and my children and every other parent that has the same concern is yes, early to bed children fair better emotionally and physiologically. A study done at Brown University Medical School gave 138 third grade girls stressful tasks during a few hours spent at their homes. The researchers measured initial levels of the stress hormone cortisol in saliva samples and rechecked cortisol after each task. The girls’ weeknight bedtimes correlated with their stress hormone response. Those going to bed early released more cortisol after the first stressful experience, but compared with girls kept up past 9 p.m., their stress hormones declined more steeply during the next two tasks. Kids with later bedtimes, were more uncomfortable during the tasks than the children who got more sleep.

Prolonged output of cortisol can:

• Raise blood pressure and heart rate.
• Weaken immune response, so that colds and other viruses take hold more easily.
• Make it harder to concentrate when challenged.

The findings apply to boys as well as girls. The study also found preliminary evidence of nervous system changes in sleep-deprived children. Children’s sleep needs vary and the majority can handle mild degrees of sleep depravations, but some do just terribly.

It can sometimes be stressful just putting your children to bed at the appropriate time. I personally would rather deal with an upset child at bedtime than a cranky child in the morning, especially when attempting to meet deadlines as well as making sure the children eat a healthy breakfast.

I agree with you that a parent’s responsibility is to get their child to bed at a reasonable time and to maintain a consistency in that time to reduce stress and maintain a healthy nervous system.

Quote of the week: "Experience…is simply the name we give our mistakes." Oscar Wilde