Puberty Plays Key Role in Sleep Influence in Teenagers

Teenagers have abnormal bed times when compared to children and adults. Considered a "normal" sleeping pattern for teens, the bed time is often quite late and, when permitted, most teenagers will sleep long hours into the morning. To promote healthy sleeping habits, parents of a teenager must work diligently to promote early sleep time and early wake times, often with great challenge.

To the dismay of parents, the sleeping schedule of your teenager is not, necessarily, in your child's control. While, historically, we may believe a teenager's abnormal sleeping patters can be controlled with behavior modification, for most teens, the sleeping pattern is not a chosen process. In fact, there are physiological changes that occur at the time of puberty, resulting in a change to your teenager's sleeping pattern that can not be altered by any chosen method.

In teenagers, the melatonin secretion rhythm begins to become more established. As children mature through puberty, the secretions of melatonin often are delayed, resulting in later sleep times. Therefore, if your teenager is beginning to go to bed later, and seeking to sleep in later in the morning, this is a normal pubescent process that indicates the natural progression of maturity is taking place. As these changes in melatonin occur, your teenager may become highly sensitive to evening light, desiring to stay up later when light is present, and have decreased sensitivity to morning light, leading to an inability to rise when the sun rises.

The maturity of your teenager, therefore, may impact the ability of you, as the parent, to control their sleep times and sleep schedules. This is to say, the more mature and advanced your teenager becomes, the less control you may have. For teens who are less mature then their peers, there is a better control factor for parents with the greatest influence coming within the four hours following the sunset when melatonin levels should begin to secrete. Without capturing this sleep encouragement in the first four hours, you may find it difficult to encourage any kind of sleep.

Teenagers have long been considered "abnormal" in their sleeping patterns. For decades past, and even today, parents work hard to encourage sleep schedules for their teens. Because a teenager's puberty and maturity cycle stronger encourages and influences the sleep pattern, parents may be unable to control the child's sleep times as maturity progresses. When considering enforcement of sleep schedules, your optimal time will come when your child's maturity has not yet developed and during the first four hours after sunset.