Sleep Deprivation In High School

Teenagers academic problems are commonly mistaken for being “lazy.” Parents usually think that the reason their kids don’t get “good” grades is because their children don’t put enough effort into school. Although, maybe the problem is that kids these days don’t get enough sleep. You may say, “well go to bed earlier”, but society expects students to do their homework, study, be fit, have a social life, and then go to bed at a reasonable time. That’s a big expectation for young people to handle these days. So, i think that school should start later in the day, because it would benefit the students academically and behavior issues would decrease. Sleep deprivation isn’t something that students should go through at such a young age, because it
affects their academic skills and their behavior in school. People say “ Early to bed early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise” (neatoday.org). If students went to school at a later time, then more students would be focused and less irritable. Even 1-2 hours later would improve the student’s academic performance. School’s that have tried to move the school time, has been a success. Many schools have said that their academic scores have improved and behavioral issues have been less of a problem. The university of Minnesota stated “ The study found that attendance and academic performance in Math, English, Science, and Social studies improved with later start times” (neatoday.org). Behavior issues are a situation that most schools have to put up with, and it’s very stressful for the school faculty. What if those issues would decrease, simply because everyone got a little more sleep? Getting more sleep would help more students to be up at the right time and tardiness and absences might decrease. Being up so early makes getting up even harder than if it were later in the day, so the earlier the time, the students may not come in prompt. “Reduced tardiness, truancy, and drop-out rates. More sleep per night and reduced fatigue, reduced depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts and behavior.”