You may wonder why teenagers stay up late and not want to wake up until late?
Adolescent teenagers, however, have a different circadian rhythm from younger siblings. During puberty time it is shifted forward, that is common across all adolescents no matter the culture or geography. So far forward it even passes the time of their adult parents.
FACT: Young children have an earlier sleep schedule to those of a teenager.
As a nine year old the circadian rhythm would have a child asleep by 9pm, driven in part by the melatonin.
By the time this individual has turned 16, the circadian rhythm has fast forward in its cycling phase, and the rise of melatonin and sleep is many hours away, and the result is this 16 year old has no interest in sleeping at 9pm. Instead peak wakefulness is usually in play at this hour (your teen wants to have full conversations with you!!)
Even around 10-11pm a teenager can be wide awake. A few more hours must pass before the circadian rhythm of a teenage brain begins to shut down alertness and allow for easy, sound sleep to begin.
This leads to frustration for all parties – parents want teenagers to be awake at a ‘reasonable’ hour in the morning, yet teenagers cannot wind down.
Asking your teen to be in bed asleep by 10pm, is like asking an adult to be in bed by 7 to 8pm.
No matter how much you ask this of a teen, their circadian rhythm is not there.
Furthermore, asking your teen to wake at 7am the next morning is equivalent to asking a parent to wake at 4 to 5am.
Our society is not well designed to appreciate or accept that teenagers need more sleep than adults and that they are biologically wired to sleep at a different time from their parents.
We may need to keep this in mind this coming school holidays.
It is very understandable for parents to feel frustrated in this way, since they believe that their teenager’s sleep patterns reflect a conscious choice not a biological edict.
We as parents need to be wise to accept this fact, and embrace it, encourage it and praise it.
We do not want our children to suffer developmental brain abnormalities or force a raised risk of mental illness upon them.
Central to the goal of adolescent development is the transition from parental dependence to independence, all while learning to navigate the complexities of peer-group relationships and interactions.
One way mother nature has perhaps helped adolescents unbuckle themselves from their parents is to march their circadian rhythms forward in time, past that of their mothers and fathers.
This ingenious biological solution selectivity shifts teenagers to a later phase when they can, for several hours, operate independently – and do so as a peer-group collective. It is not a permanent or full dislocation from parental care, but as safe an attempt to partially separate soon-to-be adults from the eyes of the mother and father. There is a risk, of course (especially with technology)
But the transition must happen.
And the time of day when those independent adolescents’ wings unfold, and the first solo flights from the parental nest occurs, is not a time of the day at all, but rather a time of night, thanks to a forward shifting circadian rhythm.
As parents, we are often too focused on what sleep is taking away from our teenagers, without stopping to think about what it may be adding.
Content from “Why we Sleep” – Matthew Walker
