Get Your Kids to Trade in Screen Time for Sleep

If you’re worried about how much screen time versus dream time your kids are getting, you’re not alone. But for your kids’ well-being, it’s time to reign in the connectivity: Recent studies have found that teens who sacrifice sleep time for screen time are at a greater risk for sleep disorders, mood swings and depression – not to mention a less-than-stellar performance at school due to shortened attention spans.

So why do your digitally savvy kids value their connectivity so much? Think of your own exciting, enlightening and entertaining exchanges once experienced in drive-in movie theaters of your youth. The relationships your kids forge on social media platforms now resonate on that same kind of emotional level.

However, that doesn’t mean that your kids should forfeit healthy cognitive function for a midnight marathon of “Halo 3.” Here are five ways to help them find a better balance:

No. 1: Check your cell phone bills.

Find out what time your kids are calling, texting and receiving messages or calls from friends. Once you have a clear idea of what’s happening post-bedtime, you’ll know how to address the issue and what kind of boundary to set.

No. 2: Help them make the connection between screen time and health.

Ask your kids about their online and mobile device habits. Have they noticed any negative effects from staying up late to surf the Web or IM their friends? How often do they wake up in the middle of the night because someone called or texted them? The point here isn’t to bust them, but to teach them to make the right choices by helping them identify how certain aspects of their mental and physical well-being have been compromised by their screen time habits.

No. 3: Create a technology curfew.

If you can’t trust them not to indulge in their devices after your curfew, have your kids hand over their devices every night at a pre-appointed time. Will you be hit with a deluge of groaning, punctuated by melodramatic door-slams? Probably. But at some point, you have to set boundaries to help them get the benefits of regular, uninterrupted sleep. Another option is to contact your carrier to turn off texting and phone service during certain hours. This way, you don’t have to play phone police all night, and their phone can stay in their possession.

No. 4: Give your rules a healthy context.

This isn’t about enforcing rules and restricting digital activity so much as it’s about keeping your kids healthy. Let them know that you know how valuable their devices are to them, but that we all need to learn to strike a balance. So instead of saying things like “No computer after 9 p.m.” or “Gaming is not allowed after bedtime,” try setting a positive tone to the boundaries. Focus on what privileges they do have. Say “You can use your computer from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., and your cell phone until dinnertime” or “Once homework is finished, games can be played until bedtime.”

No. 5: Be a role model.

Make sure you’re not always on Web devices too, especially when your kids need your attention or when it’s family time. If you’re arguing that, for the sake of their health, your children don’t need to be open for 24/7 interaction with the outside world, then maybe you don’t need to be either?

Finally – A Clue to Understanding SIDS

SIDS or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or “the death of an infant before his or her first birthday that cannot be explained after a complete autopsy, an investigation of the scene and circumstances of the death, and a review of the medical history of the infant and of his or her family” is every parent’s worst nightmare. Finally, according to a new study whose findings were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association earlier this week, a new discovery may help identify babies at risk for SIDS, which each year kills more than 2,300 babies before their first birthday.

Taking the next step in more than 20 years of research, Dr. Hannah Kinney of Harvard Medical School and researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston have linked sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) with low production of serotonin in the brainstem. In the brainstem, serotonin helps regulate some of the body’s involuntary actions, such as breathing, heart rate and blood pressure during sleep. The findings suggest that some babies have an underlying vulnerability to SIDS, which can become fatal when combined with an external stress such as sleeping face down, especially when it occurs within the first year of life.

“Our research suggests that sleep unmasks the brain defect,” Kinney said in a statement. “When the infant is breathing in the face-down position, he or she may not get enough oxygen. In a normal baby rebreathing carbon dioxide, serotonin pathways in the brainstem would stir the baby awake long enough to turn its head, allowing it to breathe fresh air…a baby with low serotonin levels in the brainstem may never stir.”

The team hopes the study will lead to a test that measures a baby’s serotonin levels, making it possible to identify children at highest risk for SIDS….and possibly develop treatments to correct the serotonin deficiency.

Amazing how one small discovery can make such a tremendous impact.

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REFERENCES:

• U.S. researchers find new clue to infant deaths: Reuters, Feb 2, 2010
• SIDS linked to low levels of serotonin: Armenian Medical Network, Feb 2, 2010
• SIDS may be Caused by Low Production of Serotonin in Brainstem, Disabled world, Feb 3, 2010