Sleep, or lack there of!!!

Here is a quote from an article on WedMD.

Infants aged 3 to 11 months are on average getting 12.7 hours of sleep per day, though experts recommend four to 15 hours, according to the poll. School-aged kids between thefirst andfifth grade get an average of 9.5 hours per night, which averages out at least 3.5 hours less sleep than they should get each week, it found.

Sleep is closely linked to learning and memory ability, which can both affect school performance. Foul moods and even depression are also tied to chronic sleep deprivation in both children and adults, says Carl E. Hunt, MD, director of the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

"Even missing an hour a night, we do pay a price," Hunt, who is a pediatrician, tells WebMD.

So according to this article, an elementary student should be getting 13 hours of sleep!!!! In researching this online I found that most places say between 10 and 13 hours for elementary students.

Taking that into consideration, lets look at the day we would have if the boys were in public school (using the average of 11.5 hours).

6:15 - wake up

7:15 - on the bus

8:00 - school starts

2:00 - school ends

2:30 - bus drops off

3:30 - homework finished (if we were lucky)

4:00 - more realistic estimate of when homework was finished

5:00 - free time is over

5:15 - dinner (who eats dinner that early anymore!)

5:45 - dinner over, chores, etc.

6:15 - get ready for bed

6:45 - should be asleep (LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL Their father isn't even home from work at this time. Heck many times of the year it isn't even dark until 9pm!)

What about those all important sports and afterschool clubs, boy scouts, girls scouts??? Where do those fit in? When do children actually get to SEE their parents?

The things I found that sleep affected were:

behavior (see rocketing ADD and ADHD statistics in American PS)
IQ score (see struggling academics in American PS)
weight (see out of control obesity epidemic in America)

And things don't get better for middle school students. The middle school bus picks up just before 8 and doesn't drop off until 4:30. INSANE!!!!!!