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I am just completing Mary Sheedy Kurcinka's book Sleepless in America
I am struck, as I move through middle-age, just how much sleepless has affected me and my family throughout our lives.
Sheedy is comprehensive in her approach to unfurling this massive issue. She looks at the link between misbehaviour and missing sleep to start with. Surprise, surprise-- the child (adult) who hasn't slept enough is often cranky and out of sorts-- but also, clumsy, fuzzy-minded, impulsive, and/or clingy. I found it helpful that she provides a table showing the average numbers of hours of sleep that children (infants to young adults of 20) need each 24 hours. Did you know that your eight-year old-- who likely no longer has a nap provision in her day-- needs 10 to 11 hours of sleep on average??
Also, very helpful is Sheedy's exposure of the situations that prevent children from having a good restful sleep. We would suspect "stress" to be one of the items, but what about the role that a child's temperament plays in sleeplessness? This is where Sheedy really shines-- in explaining the intricacies of tempermental differences, particularly among the "spirited" group (those who are just a little more... more sensitive, more intense, more energetic, etc.), we have a good idea of how these children can be shamed and punished for something that is basically their genetic "wiring". I wonder if my extremely sensitive adult-child will ever forgive me for the 'overprogramming' that I put him through-- everything from the large-group violin lessons when he was three to the huge (for him, devastating) crowd church services as an adolescent. When he was about ten he told us "That's it! I'm not joining anything else. I will keep on with my drum classes and band at school, but no more clubs or other stuff." And that is the kind of adult he is.... very much geared to relating one-to-one with friends, running his own life by his own rules, and staying away from overwhelming crowds. And as adults, his father and I really respect and value his sensitive and intuitive input into our lives. I would have appreciated knowing this when he was a little boy.
The best part of the book, I think, are the strategies that Kurcinka provides for achieving necessary sleep in the household. She even has a chapter on Night Walking, Night Terrors and Nightmares that will do much to assure parents and kids and remedy the situations that produce these frightening occurrences. When I was a parenting educator in a social work clinic, I would get frequent calls asking about how to deal with night terrors and the like. Back in those days there was NO information. My own children had by-passed night terrors (as far as I know), so I was next to useless in helping parents who were living with them.
This book is so very densely constructed that it has taken me weeks to read. It is full of wisdom and hope. I plan to give Sleepless in America
Here are a couple of short videos about the value of getting enough sleep: an NBC video about sleep research
and Anderson Cooper visits a Sleep Clinic where we learn about the structure of sleep