Freakin overachievers

DO NOT come to us, the children's sleep experts, telling us that your child is tired and falls asleep in school if your child fits one of the following categories:

1. Category A: You are probably upper-middle class. Your child is enrolled in honors courses or is a student at a private school that requires him or her to wake up at o'dark thirty and commute to school. Your child also has extra-curriculars that include things like sports for a travel-team; opera singing; musical endeavors that require lots of lessons and practice; debate team; junior paleontologist training. You get extra points if your child does all of the above. Your child arrives home after 5 o'clock (extra credit if she or he arrives after 7 at night) , eats, does homework until 11:00 PM and falls asleep until the alarm goes off at 5:30 AM. Even more extra credit if he or she has activities that run on the weekends.
2. Category B: You are, functionally or literally, a single parent. Your child needs to get up at the crack of dawn so that you can get him or her to school for the super-early breakfast club so that you can get to work. Your child then stays at school all day long and then does activities or stays in an after-school program until you can arrange to get him or her. Then you go home, have dinner, do homework and get to bed at 11:00 PM and get up the next morning at 5:30 AM.

Denise and I are not physicians, however, we feel comfortable in making this on-line diagnosis: your child is falling asleep because he or she is, how to say this gently, TIRED. There is NO WAY that an adolescent should be getting 6 or 7 hours of sleep at night. NO NO NO. So, if you fall into category A, then please spare us the tales of competing for college entry and the necessity of all of the extra-curriculars. Your kid needs more sleep. If you don't want to give him or her the time to get more sleep, then don't come whining to a sleep lab about the need for Provigil or a $4000 overnight test to figure out why your kid is tired. Stop focusing on getting into your first choice of schools and instead focus on getting your child there there well-rested.

If you fall into Category B, believe me, we feel your pain. Encourage your child to take naps during the downtime parts of the day. See if there's a way to get homework done during the after-school hours so that there's more time for bed at night. And please see rules #1 and 4 about TV and food.

Finally, if your kid doesn't fit into either of the above categories, keep in mind that even Trixie, who is perfect in every way, admits to having slept through most of high school. : )