There are 70 million Americans with sleep disorders who would like nothing more than to relax at night. Now there’s more reason to keep you up late.

People who sleep fewer than six hours or more than nine hours a night are more likely to have health problems, according to the largest government study linking obesity to irregular sleep.

Health problems also include higher rates of smoking and alcohol use among those who sleep too little or too much.

The report finds that restorative value of sleep has been underappreciated in public health recommendations.

In time of stress, the body is known to hold onto fat stores. That’s why diets often result in weight gain. The lack of sleep may also create a similar stressful situation. Expect to see more emphasis on eight hours a night as a key to good health.

The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics surveyed 87,000 Americans from 2004 to 2006.

Among the findings:

* Smoking rates were highest for those who got under six hours of sleep a night. 31 percent were smokers. Heavy sleepers included 26 percent who smoked. The average rate of U.S. smokers is 21 percent. Among those who slept an average of eight hours, 18 percent were smokers.

* Obesity rates for light sleepers were 33 percent, for heavy sleepers 26 percent and 22 percent for normal sleepers.

* Alcohol use among the light sleepers was the heaviest. Regular and heavy sleepers have about the same rate of alcohol use.

* Exercise rates were low for those who slept a lot, worse than regular or light sleepers. Health problems or being elderly age may account for that

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine finds an increasing number of obese youth are not getting enough sleep. Obesity rates among children and teens have doubled in the last 30 years and AASM says sleep may be as important a component in fighting fat as diet and exercise.

Infants to 11 months need 14 to 15 hours of sleep a night; toddlers 12-14 hours; preschool children 11-13 hours and adolescents 9 hours. Adults should get seven to eight hours of sleep a night.

For those who have trouble falling to sleep follow these rules:

* Find a consistent bed time to go to sleep and wake up

* Keep the room completely dark free of lights from clocks or cable boxes

* Keep the room cooler

* Do not consume caffeine, colas or chocolate before bed or in the evening

* Take a break of at least an hour before bedtime from electronics

Also for children:

* Avoid videos or TV shows that are not age appropriate

* Use a half hour before bedtime for a bedtime routine and to read, interact and be close

* Do not let your child fall asleep while being held, rocked or nursed

* Avoid hunger at bedtime

Source: InjuryBoard.com, FL
http://www.injuryboard.com/national-news/cdc-sleep.aspx?googleid=238656

Returning to work after maternity leave is one of the most difficult aspects of raising a baby, the results of a new nationwide survey of mothers indicate.

Of those surveyed, 29% cited returning to work after maternity leave as the most difficult aspect of raising a baby, while over half cited it as one of the most difficult aspects.

Not surprisingly, sleep deprivation was found to be the second most difficult aspect of having a baby. Other concerns faced by new parents included worrying about the health of a child and searching for quality childcare.

The results indicated that there are still a number of issues which parents would like to receive further information on. Altogether, 37% of respondents said they would like more information on child development, 30% wanted more information on caring for a sick baby, while 20% wanted more information on weaning.

When it came to the issue of bottle or breastfeeding, an almost equal number of respondents were in favour of each option. A significant number meanwhile opted for a combination approach, suggesting that many mothers no longer feel tied into making an ultimate choice and feel comfortable practising both bottle and breastfeeding.

However when it came to choosing the method of feeding, people with influence, such as healthcare professionals, family and friends, were found to play a large role in the decision making process.

Among those who chose to bottlefeed their child, the most important factor behind the decision was the return to work.

Meanwhile a number of factors were found to influence the decision to breastfeed, the main one being the health and wellbeing of the baby. Some mothers also opted for breastfeeding in the hope of developing a closer bond with their child in the early stages of life.

The survey was conduced by SMA Nutrition in association with Rollercoaster.ie

Source: Irish Health, Ireland
http://www.irishhealth.com/?level=4&id=13443

Computer games and fast food have been blamed by doctors for a startling rise in the number of children being treated in hospital for sleep disorders.

Eating too much sugary food is also blamed for preventing children from dropping off to sleep.

Newly released NHS figures show that the number of under-11s referred to hospital specialists for insomnia, sleep-walking and sleep-related breathing problems has rocketed by 26 per cent over the past five years.

But the true numbers affected could be much higher because the figures reflect only those seeking medical help.

Studies have linked poor sleep to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). And lack of sleep harms children’s ability to learn at school.

Psychologist Chireal Shallow, of the Naturally Nurturing clinic for children’s sleep disorders in London, said: “There are likely to be thousands more children whose parents do not seek treatment.

“A lot of the problem is guilty parenting where kids are allowed the rule of the roost because Mum and Dad come home from work late.

“The light, sound and movement of television or computer screens is stimulating and keeps children awake and there should be at least an hour’s gap before going to bed.”

Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said: “It’s absolutely crazy for parents to let their children go to bed any time they like.

“Parents need to exert more authority and remove computer games from bedrooms to make sure kids have the best start in life. I’m sure teachers would be delighted.”

The NHS statistics show nearly 3,000 children under 11 had their sleep monitored overnight by specialists during 2006 compared with only 2,200 in 2002.

Of those, 1,733 were boys.

Professor Jim Horne of the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University, said that children aged five to eight are particularly vulnerable to sleep problems as a result of ‘electronic distractions’ because having a rigid bedtime routine is so important to them.

“If they sleep better, the ADHD symptoms disappear.”

Jane Howell, 34, from Morden, South West London, struggled for years to get her son Marcel, now 13, to sleep.

After spending most of the day at school in front of a computer, Marcel would spend the evenings watching television but then found it hard to drop off, often not falling asleep until just a few hours before he had to be up again. “Eventually the problem got so bad that Jane approached a sleep clinic. “She said: “The clinic asked me about his routines and said computers, televisions and mobile phones were a distraction.

“They told me to minimise the time he uses computers and after 8pm it’s now wind-down time.

“He now has much more energy and is sleeping better. As parents you have to be hard on your kids. They want to do their own thing but you have to be strict.”

Dr Rob Primhak, a consultant paediatric respiratory physician at Sheffield Children’s Hospital, said there was now a shortage of specialists due to the numbers coming in.

“There has been a huge surge in demand,” he said.

Mandy Gurney, of the Millpond Children’s Sleep Clinic in London, said: “Not getting a good night’s sleep can have the same effect as four units of alcohol, so imagine what it is like for a child.”

Source: Daily Mail, UK
http://tinyurl.com/4ktvhr

When the wind blows, the cradle will rock. And when babies sleep less, they may gain too much weight. A new Harvard study finds that babies and toddlers who sleep fewer than 12 hours daily are at greater risk for being overweight in preschool, startling evidence that the link between sleep and obesity may affect even very young children.

“The two (behaviors) are acting independently. In combination, they are particularly risky,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Elsie Taveras of Harvard Medical School.

The findings, published in April’s Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, are based on mothers’ reports of their babies’ sleep habits and TV viewing, and direct measures of the children’s height, weight and skinfold thickness.

Starting when the babies were 6 months old, mothers were asked how long their children napped during the day and how long they slept at night. Moms were asked again when the children were 1 and 2 years old. They were asked about TV time when the children reached age 2.

The researchers combined the sleep answers to find an average pattern for each child during the first two years of life. They found 586 of the children slept an average of 12 or more hours a day and 329 of the children slept less than that.

Among the long sleepers, 7 percent were obese at age 3.

The short sleepers fared worse. Twelve percent of them became obese 3-year-olds. Adding TV to the picture, 17 percent of those who slept less than 12 hours a day and watched two or more hours of television a day were obese by the time they were 3.

Obesity was defined as having a body mass index in the 95th percentile or above. BMI is a measure that combines height and weight. A 3-year-old who is 3 feet, 3 inches tall and 40 pounds would be considered obese.

The researchers took into account other risk factors for obesity, including TV viewing, and still found the children who slept fewer than 12 hours a day had a doubled risk of being obese at age 3 than the other children.

Sleep’s impact on appetite hormones may explain the effect, Taveras said. In prior studies, sleep-deprived adults produced more ghrelin, a hormone that promotes hunger, and less leptin, a hormone that signals fullness.

TV viewing is thought to increase the risk of obesity both because it takes time away from calorie-burning play and because of food ads for snacks and fast food.

The families in the new study lived in Massachusetts and had relatively high incomes and education levels, making it difficult to apply the findings to everyone, Taveras acknowledged. Sleep researchers who read the study said it adds to growing evidence of the link between poor sleep and obesity. A study published last year found that every additional hour per night a third-grader spends sleeping reduces the child’s chances of being obese in sixth grade by 40 percent.

“The main message for parents is that there has to be regularity in sleep in children. It’s very important to maintain a schedule,” said Dr. Michelle Cao of Stanford University’s sleep disorders clinic. She wasn’t involved in the study but co-wrote an accompanying editorial in the journal.

Taveras recommended practices that teach infants to fall asleep on their own, putting them to bed when they’re drowsy but not fully asleep.

Pat Prinz of the University of Washington, who wasn’t involved in the study, said parents who rely on day care should make sure their toddlers have plenty of time to run, jump and play.

“The more active they are in the day, the better they’ll sleep at night,” Prinz said. But she cautioned that genetics may play a role in sleep and a person’s genetic makeup may limit how much sleep duration can be improved.

Source: The Associated Press
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hU7C7YWiJZnZmED5gI2CUbejRYvwD8VT7VV80

How parents deal with a baby who has trouble getting to sleep and staying in dreamland can affect the child’s bedtime behaviour into the preschool years at least, a Canadian study suggests.

Co-author Dr. Tore Nielsen, director of the Dream and Nightmare Laboratory at Hopital du Sacre-Coeur de Montreal, said soothing a baby with the breast, the bottle or food when he or she awakens in the night may be OK in the early months of life, but can perpetuate bad dreams once the child reaches 29 to 41 months.

“If the parents were still clinging to this habit that the parents brought with them from when the child was much younger - you know, giving the child a bottle or giving the child something to suck on or chew on - but doing this still at 40 months, the child is much more likely to have nightmares later at four years old,” he said.

Parents need to wean themselves of that habit and teach children to “self-soothe” so they fall asleep by themselves after awakening, Nielsen said Monday from Montreal. The same is true at bedtime: “You have to put them to bed awake and let them fall asleep on their own. This is common, common counsel now for parents.”

Giving a child something to eat or drink when they awaken from a bad dream - “that’s a poor substitute,” he said.

Nielsen, a psychiatrist, believes bad dreams are a result of interpersonal difficulties. While less than four per cent of young children reported experiencing nightmares “all the time,” he said they are more common among kids from single-parent families or families with conflict in the home - as opposed to fear of the dark or other such anxieties.

To conduct the study, the researchers administered questionnaires to parents of the 987 children, who were five months old at the beginning of the study.

Each year until the children reached age six, mothers or fathers answered questions about their child’s sleeping habits and disturbances - such as bad dreams, inadequate sleep time and delays in falling asleep - psychological characteristics and sociodemographic factors.

Parents also reported on their own behaviour at children’s bedtimes, including whether they lulled their children to sleep, laid them down awake or stayed with them until they fell asleep. They also detailed how they dealt with nighttime awakenings, including comforting children in bed, taking them out of bed, giving them food or bringing them to the parental bed.

Having a child sleep with a parent after nighttime awakening remained associated with kids taking more than 15 minutes to return to sleep after awakening, although a mother’s presence at the beginning of sleep appeared protective against such delays, the authors write.

The Montreal study was one of several in this issue of the journal dedicated to sleep research.

In an accompanying editorial, Drs. Michelle Cao and Christian Guilleminault of Stanford University in California say doctors and researchers need to do a better job of recognizing, defining and treating sleep disorders in children.

“One message that we can take from these studies is clear: more attention should be given to sleep and sleep-related disorders.”

Source: The Canadian Press, TORONTO
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jYNwHdDBg11G3Er8nO8_-O13Jf0w

Paedophiles are not the only threat to children with no real concept of the dangers of the net, writes Carol Hunt

It’s ironic that in an age where parents are so sensitive to the dangers of allowing children socialise without supervision that the biggest threat to their safety could possibly be within their own home.

This week a report by the UK’s communications watchdog, Ofcom, showed that children as young as eight are at risk from paedophiles and bullies because of their use of the internet.

Of the 3,000 children surveyed, who had internet access, half of eight-to-11-year-olds have a profile on a social network — Bebo being the preferred site for nearly two-thirds of this age group. Many of the kids admit that they lie about their age when networking and nearly half say that their parents have laid down absolutely no rules or guidelines concerning their use of the internet.

Don’t parents realise that their child is probably more likely to link up with a paedophile masquerading as a fellow friend online than in the local park after school?

Okay, most parents of my age are still more than a little confused when it comes to the intricacies of social networking. We are not part of the millennial generation.

(Millennials, for all you old fogeys out there, are people [usually young] who are totally au fait with all aspects of internet communication).

But whether we like it or not, parents now have a responsibility to catch up with modern technology as quickly as possible — our children’s safety may depend on it.

And I admit that this may not be such an easy task, especially if — like me — you are a bit of a Luddite when it comes to technology.

I still get confused when I try to send group emails and I have never willingly accessed a social networking site.

I have an old-fashioned fear of posting anything on the internet — emails, photos, videos that I wouldn’t be happy seeing plastered over the front of a newspaper. Which is why I still find it quite unbelievable when I see what kids put up about themselves on the internet — most of them with not a thought for who will read it or what use their photos and personal details can be put to.

Most parents I know just can’t seem to get their heads around the casual manner in which kids will post sexually provocative material about themselves online.

They are genuinely shocked when they are shown Bebo or MySpace sites of precocious young girls who post porn-style pictures of themselves on their pages — complete with phone numbers and addresses — but still seem to remain ignorant of the fact that their own child may be posting inappropriate material about themselves online.

The Ofcom report states baldly that children and teenagers feel ‘invincible’ when on the web and it’s understandable that they fail to see the danger of posting sensitive information when cocooned in the privacy of their own homes.

Even Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has been caught out several times discussing schemes against a corporate enemy in emails which were admitted as evidence in anti-trust testimony.

And if he doesn’t know better, how can we expect teenagers to be aware of the dangers of posting information on the web that they would be far better off keeping to themselves? A few months ago I talked to a number of young, intelligent teenagers about their use of the internet and was amazed when most of them said they spent a minimum of two to three hours a day on it.

Many young people now spend far longer on the net than they do watching TV — up to 20 hours a week in some cases — and we wonder why they’re becoming obese?

In cyber-language they discuss their likes, dislikes, what they got up to at the weekend, drink/drugs, sexual preferences and a whole lot of other stuff that they would “die” if their parents found out about.

“But this stuff is out there for anyone to access, including your parents,” I said.

They dismissed my concern with a few shrugs and giggles: “My parents wouldn’t have a clue how to access my Bebo or MySpace site,” said one 15-year-old confidently. “My mother can’t even send emails, never mind find Google,” said another.

The teens are dismissive — and in some cases contemptuous — of the older generation’s inability to navigate the intricacies of social networking and other web activities.

What they don’t seem to be aware of — or care about — is that increasingly employers are using these sites to find out about current or potential employees. And it’s very easy for information and photos that you may have thought were confined to your own circle of friends to get out into the general arena.

Even if you never post a single incriminating item on the web, that’s no guarantee someone else won’t do it for you.

Earlier this year, a young teacher in Britain was suspended after an advertisement she did in her former career as an actress was posted on YouTube and spotted by her thrilled students.

Unfortunately for Sarah Green the ad was for Scruffs — clothing for construction workers — and featured three young women simulating sex with some lucky construction workers. The parents of the private school where Ms Green teaches were not amused.

“It appears her character is possibly not suited to such a highly regarded school,” one parent reportedly said.

Why do we give out so much personal information online when we cannot control its dissemination?

Not even George Orwell could have envisaged that the educated peoples of the free world would so enthusiastically hand over their lives to a pack of geeky global computer nerds: DIY surveillance — and it costs the manipulators nothing.

But whatever about the philosophical implications of a world where nothing is secret, our first priority is to teach our children how to protect themselves online: not just against possible predators, be they sexual or otherwise, but also against displaying information which may come back to haunt them in later years.

The Ofcom report states that many parents are oblivious to the issues of privacy and safety on the internet and seem to think that the sites themselves protect the users.

This isn’t good enough. If we allow our children to use the internet, we should also make sure that we know how to protect them from the risks they can incur online. As Robin Blake, head of media literacy at Ofcom, said: “This is an issue about parenting.”

Source: Irish Independent, Ireland
http://tinyurl.com/5ro88o

Mothers who shout or smack are more likely to have toddlers with sleep difficulties - but researchers do not know if the aggressive parenting style is a cause or effect of the problems.

A pediatrician from Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital has analysed data from 4600 families to see if parenting methods had any impact on the sleep behaviour of children between the ages of one and three.

Harriet Hiscock found children were nearly twice as likely to have sleep problems that persisted through the toddler years if their mother’s parenting style was “hostile” - characterised by yelling or physical punishment such as smacking - rather than “warm”.

But her research has opened a chicken-and-egg debate because it is not clear whether the sleep problems are caused by the mothers’ parenting, or if the frazzled mothers have resorted to shouting at their sleep-deprived, cranky children.

“It’s always a cause-and-effect argument and you can’t really conclude from this which one occurs first,” Dr Hiscock said.

She found the biggest predictor of persistent sleep problems was a child’s health.

Babies and toddlers who have chronic health problems such as asthma or autism were more than three times more likely to suffer sleep problems than healthy children.

The data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children found that 75 per cent of young children had no sleep issues.

Two-thirds of sleeping problems reported at age one were resolved by the second study, but about one in 20 had sleep problems that persisted over the years.

Mothers’ parenting style was not a big factor in sleep problems at the age of one, but became an issue by the second study.

Source: The Age, Australia
http://tinyurl.com/2gklfl

It’s the middle of the night, you’ve just fed your baby and you’re both feeling dozy; wouldn’t it be nice to drop off to sleep together in bed? Well, yes - and no. Welcome to the contentious issue of co-sleeping.

As with every other parenting decision you’re likely to make, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

Robin Barker, child and family health nurse and author of Baby Love, says: “Unfortunately sleep has become extremely political and it’s become a metaphor for the sort of parent you are.

“You’ve got two ends of the spectrum … the end who says you must sleep with your baby and attend to your baby all the time, and you must not do controlled crying because it can cause brain damage and … the other end who say this is a lot of nonsense - if you don’t want to sleep with your baby, don’t [and] do controlled crying for a few nights as it mostly works.”

Whether you decide to co-sleep with your baby out of principle or a longing for a decent night’s sleep, there are risks. The bed-sharing circumstances are the key, says Dr Jeanine Young, a spokeswoman for SIDS and Kids, and nursing director of research at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Brisbane. There are well-documented circumstances in which co-sleeping is risky, she says, but “if you are a breastfeeding, non-smoking mother, there is no strong evidence to suggest - unless your child has other risk factors, like they’ve been born prematurely or they are of low birth weight - that your baby is at an increased risk.

“Some studies have demonstrated that it may even be protective. We do not have enough evidence to say, ‘Thou shalt not bed-share.“‘

Barker says if safe-sleeping guidelines are in place, then it’s OK to co-sleep. “In relation to co-sleeping as a parenting style - a la attachment parenting - it is certainly an option but I still believe that in our society most people prefer not to sleep on a regular basis with their babies and children,” she says.

Why? “Western lifestyle, probably. Certainly in my practice, when I was at work, most people didn’t want to permanently sleep with their babies because they wanted the bed to themselves; they wanted their husbands to themselves and they didn’t want the [co-]sleeping as a permanent arrangement.”

Barker has a warning for parents who co-sleep early on but don’t want to continue: “Just make sure your baby’s not in your bed after about three months because the longer they’re in bed after that the more entrenched it becomes. There is no easy way of getting an older baby or toddler out of your bed. It involves pain.”

Reasons for co-sleeping include cultural practices, personal choice or simply practicality: there may be only one bed to be shared by mum, dad, baby, siblings and pets. Sadly, there is also another reason. “What we’re finding in the indigenous communities,” Young says, “is that a lot of mothers don’t want to leave babies to sleep separately because they’re afraid of abuse - and we have to respect that.” For co-sleeping in busy beds, a bassinet beside mum on the bed is recommended.

If a parent chooses to bed-share, Young says, there are guidelines they should follow, which are listed on the website www.sidsandkids.org. As she points out, “Babies [still] die in cots [and] babies are more likely to be placed prone if they are in a cot. Often if they’re in a bed-sharing environment, they’ve been put on their back because they’re breastfeeding.

“From an anthropological point of view, bed-sharing is the norm and is for 90 per cent of the world’s population,” Young says. “It’s only Western industrialised societies that conceptualise separate sleeping as the norm and that’s really only in the last 200 years. Then you have to look at SIDS rates; in China, for example, they don’t have a word for SIDS in the language.”

What we don’t do enough of in Australia, she says, is room share. “The safest place for a baby to sleep is in a cot beside the parents’ bed for the first six to 12 months of life,” Young says.

Dr Kei Lui, director of newborn care at the Royal Hospital for Women, says the hospital views co-sleeping as a parental choice. For newborns in the hospital, he says: “Co-sleeping is not practical because of safety - not that we are against it.” Reasons involve maternal alertness: a women who has just undergone a prolonged labour (and been given pain-relieving drugs) or a woman who has had a caesarean may have “reduced responses” towards her baby.

Hannah Dahlen, secretary of the NSW Midwives Association, says if guidelines are followed there can be benefits (more sleep, easier breastfeeding). Parents who want to co-sleep could put their mattress on the floor or invest in a king-size bed, she says.

Other risks of long-term co-sleeping (and the continual breastfeeding that can accompany it), according to Barker, are child tooth decay and sleep deprivation for the mother.

However, she adds: “In the first three months, when babies are awake a lot and crying at night, sometimes sleeping with them is the only way everyone’s going to get some sleep.”

Guidelines for sharing a bed

* Put baby on the back to sleep (not the tummy or side).
* Use a firm mattress.
* Make sure bedding cannot cover baby’s face.
* Put baby at the side of one parent, not between two parents.
* Do not put baby close to the edge of the bed or use pillows to prevent rolling off. Put mattress on floor instead.
* Pushing the bed against a wall can be hazardous.
* As an alternative to bedding, a safe infant sleeping bag may be used.
* Side-car cots that attach to the side of the bed provide closeness to enhance breastfeeding, while still giving baby a separate surface.

Avoid co-sleeping where…

* The parent is a smoker.
* There is adult bedding - doonas or pillows - that could cover a baby.
* The baby could be trapped between the wall and the bed, could fall out of the bed or could be rolled on.
* The parent is under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or is overly tired.
* There are other children or pets inthe bed.
* The sleep surface is a waterbed, beanbag, sofa or sagging mattress.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
http://tinyurl.com/34phdy

Parents who spoil their children are creating a generation of pupils who challenge teachers and throw tantrums in class, a report has warned.

A “small but significant” group of pushover parents is creating major problems for primary schools, according to the Cambridge University report, commissioned by the National Union of Teachers.

It warned that reward systems in schools to encourage good behaviour are not working.

In one primary, a difficult pupil had been given a credit for “walking pupils silently in a straight line to assembly” while a well-behaved student got the same credit for collecting a large amount of money for charity.

The Cambridge research was based on in-depth interviews with hundreds of teachers, parents and pupils over five years.

It revealed that “highly permissive” parenting, coupled with misguided discipline policies in schools, had pushed complaints about poor pupil behaviour to a record high.

Cases in the report included:

• A mother who considered it a success that her five-year-old was going to bed at 1am instead of 3am.

• A seven-year-old who threw his PlayStation against a wall and threw more tantrums for a week until he got a new one.

• A six-year-old who had mastered the violent video game Grand Theft Auto and told his teacher how to “kill pimps and prostitutes”.

• Parents who did anything to shut their children up “just to get some peace”.

Confrontational children were often copying their parents, the report added.

Many mothers and fathers undermined teachers’ authority by failing to back disciplinary sanctions imposed on their children. The report found: “Five years ago, primary teachers blamed the behaviour problems on an insufficiently motivating curriculum. Now teachers blame a rapidly changing social scene.

“By the time they come to school, many of these children had become expert in manipulating adults.”

Professor John MacBeath, co-author of the study, said: “It does to some extent run across social class, but is particularly acute in areas where people are living in very violent neighbourhoods.

“We did find some teachers who really were at breaking point in some deprived areas.”

The problem also applied to secondary schools, and was in some ways “more difficult because kids are bigger, more aggressive and less tractable”.

Steve Sinnott, the NUT’s general secretary, said the commercialisation of childhood is partly to blame since businesses used increasingly aggressive marketing tactics and “pester power”.

“Parents are struggling in a commercialised world to deal with poor behaviour on the part of their children and that is spilling over into schools, making it more difficult for teachers to cope with those youngsters,” he added. “It is pretty easy to see the impact that would have in the classroom.”

Youngsters throw the same sort of tantrums that allow them to get their way at home, said Mr Sinnott.

“Any youngster who has come from a household in which they don’t have a sensible routine for going to bed - say one or three in the morning - the idea those youngsters can be prepared to be engaged in learning is just not happening.”

The claims are the latest in a series from classroom unions which implicate parents in school discipline problems.

John Dunford, a head teachers’ leader, recently claimed teachers are increasingly forced to act as surrogate parents. (…)

Source: Daily Mail, UK
http://tinyurl.com/2ads2o

Most people know it from experience: After so many hours of being awake, your brain feels unable to absorb any more–and several hours of sleep will refresh it.

Now new research from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health clarifies this phenomenon, supporting the idea that sleep plays a critical role in the brain’s ability to change in response to its environment. This ability, called plasticity, is at the heart of learning.

The UW-Madison scientists showed by several measures that synapses — nerve cell connections central to brain plasticity — were very strong when rodents had been awake and weak when they had been asleep.

The new findings reinforce the UW-Madison researchers’ highly-debated hypothesis about the role of sleep. They believe that people sleep so that their synapses can downsize and prepare for a new day and the next round of learning and synaptic strengthening.

The human brain expends up to 80 percent of its energy on synaptic activity, constantly adding and strengthening connections in response to all kinds of stimulation, explains study author Chiara Cirelli, associate professor of psychiatry.

Given that each of the millions of neurons in the human brain contains thousands of synapses, this energy expenditure “is huge and can’t be sustained.”

“We need an off-line period, when we are not exposed to the environment, to take synapses down,” Cirelli say. “We believe that’s why humans and all living organisms sleep. Without sleep, the brain reaches a saturation point that taxes its energy budget, its store of supplies and its ability to learn further.” (…)

“Taken together, these molecular and electro-physiological measures fit nicely with the idea that our brain circuits get progressively stronger during wakefulness and that sleep helps to recalibrate them to a sustainable baseline,” says Cirelli.

The theory she and collaborator Dr. Giulio Tononi, professor of psychiatry, have developed, called the synaptic homeostasis hypothesis, runs against the grain of what many scientists currently think about how sleep affects learning. The most popular notion these days, says Cirelli, is that during sleep synapses are hard at work replaying the information acquired during the previous waking hours, consolidating that information by becoming even stronger.

“That’s different from what we think,” she says. “We believe that learning occurs only when we are awake, and sleep’s main function is to keep our brains and all its synapses lean and efficient.” (…)

Source: Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080120160658.htm