09/06/2024
It's back to school week! Ensuring a smooth transition for your kids is key to a successful start. A strong routine can make all the difference. From playtime to bedtime, creating a schedule fosters familiarity and reduces stress and anxiety for everyone. Adequate sleep sets them up for a productive day ahead. On average children need between 9-13 hrs of sleep while adults need between 7 - 9 hrs.
As a parent to a child with both ADHD and mental health struggles, I cannot stress adequate sleep enough. Even with my little one, and with children I used to babysit before becoming a parent myself, the lack of adequate sleep makes them hyperactive during the day, cranky, even really anxious and sometimes worse.
As an adult we might think we are exempt from the side effects of sleep deprivation but we’re not. You see, when we sleep, and I mean everyone, our brains get to process what happened during the day, the things we learned, things we experienced, and our bodies get to reset so that we start fresh. When we disrupt this process, we are piling on more things for our body to sort out in a shorter period of time contributing to physical and mental stress and over time, a serious imbalance.
