How many times are you out and about and every teenager you see seems to be texting? If you’re the parent of a teen you don’t even have to leave home to see this. Teens are texting while driving, riding their bike, walking from here to there and making sure they keep their cell phones on at night so they don’t miss a beat.
According to the National Sleep Foundation school-age children and adolescents need at least nine hours of sleep every night. With cell phones attached to their hips, not to mention all the other technology at their finger tips (PC, iPod, wii, etc.) are today’s teenagers getting the amount of sleep they need or is there some sleep deprivation going on?
The effects of sleep deprivation can range from headaches and/or migraines, impaired concentration, weakened immune system, crankiness, increase in use of nicotine or caffeine, hyperactivity behavior (AKA slap happy) – all unarguably not so great.
Aside from taking away your teenager’s cell phone or trusting that when you say they can’t use it between certain times they won’t what else can you do? Is it too far out there to hope that cell phones one day feature parental controls like TV sets do? Are teens aware of what sleep deprivation can do to their health?
Source: newsday.com
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One of the major reasons for sleep deprivation in teens is what they put in their mouths to drink or chew. If you read the labels you know — caffeine is in everything! That includes everything from high-octaine energy drinks and cold medicine to candy bars, potato chips and even chewing gum. Hospital emergency departments and poison control centers are reporting more and more people(half are teens)with caffeine intoxication — a dangerous health condition unknown to most people. It can kill you.
And teenagers are targeted by food and drink manufacturers of caffeinated products. Ethic Soup has two excellent articles on this at:
http://www.ethicsoup.com/2009/06/teens-and-caffeine-dangerously-wired-with-chewing-gum-injuries.html
And at:
http://www.ethicsoup.com/2009/02/caffeine-is-in-everything-how-much-is-in-you.html#more