GenX works & plays all night

Late to bed and early to rise is leaving schoolchildren in the city
unhealthy, inattentive and anything but wise.

"Nothing registers in my brain during the first three classes of the
day. I long to get back home and catch up on sleep for at least an
hour," admits Class XII student Taran Veer Singh, who stays awake till
well after midnight and wakes up to the alarm ringing at 6 in the
morning.

Sleep deprivation in children takes its toll in the form of lapses in
concentration, absenteeism in school and health problems ranging from
fatigue and indigestion to migraine and ulcers.

"My son feels lethargic all the time and needs regular medication for
indigestion," says Manmeet Kaur, the mother of a Class XII student who
studies till late every night.

Not every child sacrifices sleep for study, though.

"The nocturnal life of a student from Class VIII upwards is as much
about social networking over the phone or on the Net as about studies.
Those hours of privacy seem to matter to them more than sleep," says a
researcher studying student behaviour.

The parents of a Class VIII student of a reputable south Calcutta
school are spending lakhs to transfer their daughter to a strict
boarding school in Bangalore so that she is cured of her habit of
staying up all night to speak to friends over the phone or chat
online.

Meghna Mukherjee (name changed), a Class IX student, admits to feeling
"drowsy" in class but won't change her habit of staying up late
because that would mean sacrificing her nocturnal networking time.
"Night (call) rates are cheaper," giggles Meghna.

Nupur Ghosh, the mother of a Class X student at St Xavier's Collegiate
School, is worried that her son texts his friends even when he is
studying. "I can't even scold him. Lack of sleep has made him prone to
temper tantrums."

When schools report a drop in academic performance in children, the
culprit often turns out to be sleep deprivation. "I have seen children
dozing off while writing an exam. No matter how good a child is in
studies, performance suffers if he or she doesn't get enough sleep,"
explains Apeejay School principal Rita Chatterjee.

Nandita Pal Choudhury, whose daughters are in classes X and XII at La
Martiniere for Girls, tries to dissuade both from studying late into
the night but they don't listen. "On several occasions, my daughters
have come back from an exam upset that they couldn't recall everything
they had learnt," says Nandita.

Some schools have begun counselling students about the advantages of
following a healthy routine. "We have also been discussing possible
remedial measures at parent-teacher meetings. We suggest that parents
don't allow their children to use cellphones or computers after 11pm,"
says Fr Siby Joseph, the principal of Don Bosco School, Park Circus.

Communication between parents and children is the key to understanding
and solving sleep problems, stresses Malini Bhagat, the principal of
Mahadevi Birla Girls' Higher Secondary School. "Students pass out in
class for lack of sleep. It's that serious."

Doctors recommend eight to nine hours of sleep for children.
"Compromising on sleep leads to inconsistent performance, behavioural
disorders and also delayed response. In the long run, the heart
becomes weak," warns Apurba Ghosh, the director of the Institute of
Child Health.