Adding 30 Minutes Of This Each Day Can Improve Child Behavior
From the archive. This post was first published on the original Green Eggs and Moms blog and is kept here as it was.
How would you like to improve your child’s behavior without…
…reading an entire brick of a book or scouring the Internet for tips on how to do that?
It is possible, you know.
Just add this to your little one’s daily routine and you may see an improvement in his behavior.
What is it?
S-l-e-e-p
The benefits of catching Zs are no secret. But do you know how getting adequate–or more–sleep exactly affects child behavior in a school setting?
A study conducted by the Douglas Institute at the McGill University, Quebec, found that adding even just half an hour of sleep each day has positive effects on a child’s behavior in a school setting.
The Study
Researchers worked with 34 children, ages 7 to 11, who were split into two groups. The first group’s sleeping hours were reduced by an hour, while the second group’s were increased to an hour. The temporary sleep routines were carried out for 5 consecutive days.
Also, the children wore a device attached to their wrist, which recorded the duration of their sleep in minutes. All in all, those from the first group had 57 minutes less sleep per night and the second group received an additional 27 minutes per night.
The Result?
Those who slept longer were rated (by their teachers) to have improved alertness, attention, behavior, and emotional ability.
And remember that such positive effects were observe for a period as short as 5 days. Can you imagine what it would be like if your child received more than enough sleep for a longer period of time, say, forever?
This is quite interesting, especially because parents want their child to excel in school. One of the best ways to do so, aside from helping him with his homework, is by providing him the opportunity of entering school grounds in the right frame of mind.
But I have trouble getting my child to sleep early.
This is where child discipline comes in to send your child marching straight to bed.
Experts suggest that children ages 7 to 11 must get 10 to 11 hours of sleep per night. Now, I know it can be challenging to encourage or (subtly) force your little one to sleep early, especially when you’ve had a busy day and want to spend extra time with him.
However, if you want to equip him with the right tools–emotional and behavioral–to excel in school, prioritize adequate rest.
Set a non-negotiable bed time and help him acquire a healthy sleeping habit. It also helps to find creative ways to get your child to sleep, such as incorporating music to signal it’s time to drift into lala land. Of course choose age-appropriate songs, i.e. don’t play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to your 8-year old. (To read more on how use music to form this a sleeping routine, click here.)
Sleep has always been important.
But now you know that even a seemingly measly addition of 30 minutes of sleep per day has a significant impact on child behavior.
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