How sleepy is your teen in the morning and could this one of the causes of teen behavior problems? This is a very pertinent question, given that latest statistics show that only about 25% of teens are getting enough sleep.As you can imagine, this impacts on academic performance and increases bad moods, anger, depression, substance abuse and even self injury. That is quite a list and all because a teen is not getting enough sleep.
It also has a tragic impact on traffic accidents as over half of the accidents caused by drivers falling asleep at the wheel were caused by drivers who were around twenty years of age.
The National Sleep Foundation has some advice to offer if your teen is not getting enough sleep and this is causing teen behavior problems. We need to make sure that teens do not sleep too late.
Getting up at lunchtime is no good as it puts our sleep wake cycle out of sync. Ideally, a teen should get up within two hours of his normal wake up time, even if he or she has been out very late. Things like reducing computer time before bedtime helps. The bright screen light mimics sunlight to a certain extent and can cause people to stay awake and they have difficulty in getting off to sleep.
Imposing a switch off time for all media one hour before actually going to bed helps some teens to get better quality sleep. We should remind teens too that sleep is not unlike food and helps us to stay on task and think clearly.
Getting enough sleep is one thing but how are we going to deal with all the other teen behavior problems? There may be issues of drug abuse, drinking and other risky behaviors. How do we impose the curfews and what consequences will be useful and practical to implement?
The best solution is to study a child behavior program without having the expense of going to long sessions with a counsellor. With these home study programs, we can get to grips with all the problems of teen behavior and avoid all the mistakes we have been making up to now.
Why not explore further and see how you can back in control again. This particular program has been written by one of America's foremost and most respected behavior therapists who was a runaway teen himself and ended up in prison for a short time. I think you will find that his good sense and his expertise will be a great help. Why not check this one out?