Summertime is the best time of year (in my opinion!). Schedules can sometimes be looser, we can be outside more and it’s great to have a break from schoolwork! It is common to be more relaxed with the bedtime routine.

As a parent myself, I am happy to let a strict bedtime for the school year fade away. However, a late bedtime and waking up late can end up being troublesome during this time of year when we know we have to return to a more regular schedule.

It isn’t “bad” for kids to go to bed late and awaken late, as long as they are getting the total number of hours of sleep recommended for their age. I have met a few kids that go to bed late but also wake up early so they are tired in the daytime, which can impact their behavior.

Our middle school kids are programmed to go to bed late and awaken late -- this change to the clock inside your brain is part of the pubertal process. Therefore, it can be hard to fight the return to an early morning wake-up in August.

How should you do it? Here is one method. Once a person has been going to bed late for a longer period of time, the brain becomes accustomed to that. So simply getting in bed early won’t mean that a person gets to sleep early.

It’s best to continue with the late bedtime, but get up a bit earlier (like 1 hour earlier) than usual. It’s hard to do but using sunlight exposure (sun to the face) and encouraging breakfast can help. Then kids will be naturally tired earlier the following evening since they arose earlier that morning. Some parents use melatonin (dose of 1-3 mg) given 1 hour earlier than the late bedtime to help with falling asleep as well.

Watching caffeine intake, aiming for calm play in the hours before bedtime and keeping lighting low can also help with resetting bedtime. Screen use (TV, phones, computer monitors, and video game consoles) should stop around 1 hour before the desired bedtime as well.

Remember that bright artificial light (from screens) can trick your brain into thinking it is daytime. Try not to allow afternoon naps, so kids build up their sleepiness- aiming for a reasonable bedtime.

Sometimes writing down the plan for bedtime/waketime change can help. Kids can be an ally here so involve them in the process.

Good luck with the new school year!

My girls are just beginning to experience the downtime of summer. My early-risers are finally trying to sleep in longer. They are no longer allowed to start their days with their iPads because it immediately affects their attitudes. But that means that the dining room table is covered in crafts and unfinished projects to keep little hands busy.

This is the season of yelling “CLOSE THE DOOR!” a million times a day, and for the next few months, I will be a short-order cook rotating between their desires for grilled cheese, quesadillas, mini-pizzas, chicken nuggets and everything in between. It’s so fun, but it takes us a good chunk of time to really get into our summer rhythm.

Summertime is long awaited for many kids and teens, but unfortunately, summer can bring about depression in children and teens similar to the cold days of winter. Often in the emergency room, we start to see kids begin to struggle during the last weeks of school and then again in the last weeks of summer. The number of kids struggling with their mental health rises during these times. We know that transitions can be difficult and surrounded by anxiety for kids and parents alike. 

As much as kids love the idea of not being tied down to schoolwork and getting a break from the grind, the routine and expectations of school coupled with time with friends and activities, can make summer feel chaotic, dull, and ultimately lonely. Many parents still have to work full-time jobs while their kids are out of school, which can mean a lot of unsupervised time for kids.

It is easy for kids to get their schedules completely flipped – sleeping all day and staying up all night. They begin to spend hours in front of their screens including video games, social media and hours of endless scrolling. Once the summer is in full swing, it can be easy to miss the signs of summer blues that your kids may be experiencing. There are a few things that you can do as a parent or caregiver to help with these blues and maybe prevent some of them.

Establish a Summertime Routine

Kids are immediately out of routine. They finally get to sleep in and have no real time constraints on their day. They have zero rhythm to their days and little expectation.

Years ago, I realized this was not going to work for my kids for the whole summer. To keep some peace in my home and give my girls the best chance for transitions back into school, we needed to have at the very least a loose schedule for the summer. For us that has looked like some quiet activities in the morning. This could be reading, crafts, or play time. iPads do not turn on before 10 am.

I ask them to get dressed, brush their teeth and get ready for the day. We make beds in our home, so we keep that up even in the summertime. They are in charge of their own breakfasts, but sometime before noon. When their iPads turn on at 10 am, they have a limited amount of time on them, so they have to manage when they use their time. We have lunch a little after noon, then they can do some outside activities. Sometimes we go on a bike ride, swim or they play with neighbors or friends.

When they were younger, we had another quiet time in the afternoon that was no screen time.  Around 4 pm, we do a clean-up time to get ready for dinner and then plan to spend time together as a family after dinner. Not every day looks exactly like this, but it has been so, so helpful to have a rhythm. This lets them know what to expect.

Many times, when we plan to go somewhere, I try to do that in the morning before lunch so that we can have some rhythm to our afternoon. For my school-aged girls and pre-teen, this rhythm is so important for their brains and emotions throughout the day.

Limit screen time

Limiting screen time is so important. It is so easy for all of us to fall into hours of screen time and not get anything done all day. I am guilty of this as an adult, and we know the damage it is having on our kids and teens. Hours of scrolling are not beneficial to their developing brains.

Our girls’ iPads have a filter on them that I control from my phone. This has been an important investment for us. I can control the time their iPads come “on” and the time that they are able to be on them in a day. I also can see EVERYTHING that they search or look at in a day while also blocking and filtering the content that they can see. I can do this from work, which is super helpful. There are many options for this, but I highly encourage this.

The level at which our kids are being exposed to developmentally inappropriate content along with engaging in dangerous material is astounding. The effects of screen time on children’s brains and development are proven to be detrimental in many ways.

We are seeing the mental health of our kids and teens suffer the more they scroll. My kids have screen time limited to 2 hours during the week and 3 hours on the weekend during the summer months. They are only able to have about 30 minutes on weekdays during the school year to talk with friends and then 3 hours on the weekend. My girls are school-age and preteen. I know that some of these limits will need to change as my girls get older. I also find, like I mentioned before, that our days go much better when my kids do not start their day or end their days with screen time. We try to keep screen time sandwiched in between other activities.

Set Aside Time to Connect with Your Kids

This is something that can be challenging especially if you are working full-time. This quality time is important in the summer as well as the school year. I find, though, that summertime is a great opportunity to reconnect in different ways with your kids without the intensity of school schedules and activities getting in the way.

I try to do bike rides, plan a special outing, read a book with my girls, play a game, etc. Any time that I can get with them one-on-one time with them is even better. Our kids are looking to connect and belong. We want to be the first place that they belong. Prioritizing this time will be one of the best things you do all summer for your kids!

Say YES Where You Can

Lastly, this is the challenge for the parents. We can help our kids by saying yes where we can. Say yes to the walk, to the game, or to friends coming over. If you are the stay-at-home mom, say yes to being the house where the kids can hang out for the afternoon. Say yes to water balloon fights and water play. Say yes to the mess when you can. Say “yes” and “sure” when your margin allows. Our yes is often the bright part of the day for our kids and the things they remember the most.

Summers can be a time when memories are made and the best moments are ingrained in our kids’ minds. So, while the summertime blues can pop up, with a little bit of intentionality and a few yeses, we can combat them and help our kids have some bright summer days!

We all know sleep is important, but that doesn’t mean we get enough. And when it comes to kids, sleep is especially critical for their development and mental health.

So what should you do if your child has trouble sleeping? Hilary Pearson, M.D., is the medical director of the Sleep Center at Cook Children’s Medical Center. On this episode of Raising Joy, Dr. Pearson talks to us about sleep aids, the impact of electronics on sleep and when you should seek help for your child from a medical professional.

Raising Joy is part of Cook Children’s Health Care System’s Joy Campaign, a communications initiative aimed at preventing youth suicides. For more information about the Joy Campaign, visit cookchildrens.org/joy.

Join us for the first LIVE recording of the Raising Joy podcast on Thursday, September 29 at the historic Downtown Cowtown at the Isis Theater in the Fort Worth Stockyards.

This event, which is being hosted in partnership with The Center for Children’s Health led by Cook Children's, will bring mental health leaders in the community together to hear an inspiring talk by author and renowned speaker Andrew Solomon, Ph.D. Solomon is a Pulitzer Prize finalist, National Book Award winner, TedTalk presenter, as well as a professor of Clinical Psychology at Columbia University.

Registration is required to attend. Click here to register! 

Daylight Saving is approaching, which can be difficult for kids because they will be losing an hour of sleep. With kids having a greater sleep need, one hour can affect them even if that is a small percentage of their total amount of sleep.

The loss of that hour can be hard on the body, Hilary Pearson, M.D., medical director of the Sleep Laboratory at Cook Children's said. 

"I think it's hard because you are asking your body to do a phase shift," Dr. Pearson said. "Most bodies get really entrenched in when they fall asleep and when they wake up, particularly when we wake up and it’s hard to shift that an hour either direction." 

Dr. Pearson said kids' bodies and brains work better with a schedule, and when you change that schedule, you ask a lot of their body, biological, and emotional processes. Some children can handle the changes, but most cannot.  

Taking advantage of the time your kids have off during spring break will be beneficial in getting them back into their routine sleep schedule. Dr. Pearson suggests waking your child up in 20 minute increments each day until you reach that full hour.

The adjustments will help your kids adapt to the change without noticing much of a difference, which is extremely helpful in school-aged children because it can affect the way they learn. 

Dr. Pearson said kids above the age of six months go through stage three sleep or deep sleep, which happens in the first half of the night, and REM sleep or dreaming sleep which comes in chunks in the second half of the night. 

 "So, we need our deep sleep in that first half of the night to help our bodies feel ready, and you definitely need your dreaming sleep," Dr. Pearson said. That's when you learn, that's when you file away memories, and you need all that REM sleep in order to learn." 

Dr. Pearson encourages parents to explain the changes to their kids, and when you wake them up in the morning, make it fun and listen to music to get them going.  

"Put them maybe 15 minutes earlier to bed but say, ‘When I come get you in the morning, you're going to feel a little bit tired because we had Daylight Saving and it's a little bit earlier,’ so at least they know," Dr. Pearson said.

Daylight Saving Tips: 

• Try not to let your kids nap in the daytime. 
• Talk about it with your kids.
• Get back to your regular routine as quickly as you can. 
• Try to get your kids sunlight in the morning. 
• Keep your kids off electronics before bed.

Sleep, it’s important, right?!

Has your kid's new COVID-19 schedule got them going to bed after midnight and sleeping until noon?

Well it’s time NOW to start getting back into a normal sleep schedule for school, even if they are learning online.

So how much sleep does your child need? This is a good estimate, but teenagers can require up to 12 hours of sleep while they’re going through a growth spurt.

How much sleep does my child need?

• 3-6 year olds need 10-12 hours of sleep
• 7-12 year olds need 10-11 hours of sleep
• 13-18 year olds need 8-9 hours of sleep

If your child has a midnight or (gasp!) even later bedtime right now, start working on adjusting their bedtime slowly over the next few weeks. I propose the following schedule:

• Aug 1: 11:30 p.m.
• Aug 2: 11:15 p.m.
• Aug 3: 11 p.m.
• Aug 4: 10:45 p.m.
• Aug 5: 10:30 p.m.
• Aug 6: 10:15 p.m.
• Aug 7: 10 p.m.
• Aug 8: 9:45 p.m.
• Aug 9: 9:30 p.m.
• Aug 10: 9:15 p.m.
• Aug 11: 9:15 p.m.
• Aug 12: 9 p.m.*

*Early elementary children will likely need a 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. bedtime, adjust the 15-minute pattern above as needed.

Keep in mind that bedtime means lights out, no screen time. Charge your child’s phone in your room, you’d be shocked to find out the long text message conversations happening at 2 a.m.! No TV in the bedroom either. If your child is having trouble with the adjustment in bedtime, it is perfectly fine to give melatonin about 20-30 minutes before bedtime. One or 3 milligrams is appropriate for elementary age, up to 5 milligrams for teenagers. Don’t allow caffeine after noon either.

Best of luck transitioning to school this year! We’re all going to have to work nicely together to get through this, but we can and we will!

Let’s Not Send Zombies Off to School: Work on Sleep Schedules NOW

My kids are currently out of town for their annual summertime week with my mother, and that leaves us parents with some time to relax, eat out, watch Game of Thrones, and —drumroll—strategize about our parenting strategies. Yes, I know, that last bit sounds redundant and altogether less fun than the others. But —let’s face it—this parenting thing doesn't quite happen by itself—it takes total, multilevel “stategery.” This week, my husband and I must rethink the ever-changing and ever-challenging media rules in our household, reassess our approach to sibling tensions and our kids’ overly astute eye for even the slightest inequity between them, and, of course, discuss the sleep plan.

The sleep plan— OMG, I almost forgot! Yikes—we are just 3 weeks away from the start of school, and our kids are sleep-schedule disasters. We let it happen. We let them gradually follow their tween and teen circadian rhythms right into the swirly whirl of unstructured summer existence. We allowed for the full release of their inner night-owl. Recently in fact, our kids have tucked us parents into bed, they themselves dropping off much later (or sometimes really early the next morning), only to awaken around lunch-time the following day. Oh, Nellie.

So now, I’m calling on all parents with a sleep conundrum on their hands like we have. I’m calling on all parents who allowed their children to drift onto a late schedule. I’m also calling parents of rising kindergarteners, who up to now have let their job-schedule dictate family sleep patterns, but who now must have their kids alert and ready for circle time at 8am! I’m calling on all parents who perhaps have never had a good sleep schedule for their kids, or at least not as good a schedule as they would like. And I’m calling on the Sandman, that character of myth who sprinkles the gift of sleep and good dreams. Because, together, we have got to take action. We must rearrange the timing of our kids’ sleep, and we have no time to spare. The consequence of inaction is a big one, for without our intervention, school drop- off could look like a scene from the Thriller video, complete with the plodding, the stumbling, and the blank-eyed stares but without any good dancing. Let’s go.

1. Set a goal for optimal hours of sleep. First we must figure out just how much sleep to strive for. According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, whose guidelines are endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, a grade-school child should sleep for 9-12 hours, while teens should sleep 8-10 hours at night. To know exactly how much our individual children need, however, we need to do a little observing and tweaking. Even if children have — (ahem)— less-ideal sleep habits this summer, it is helpful to calculate how many hours they have slept on the average, during periods when they have seemed well-rested overall, in order to awaken refreshed. My kids are ages 12 and 14, so they per the guidelines should sleep 8-10 hours. In fact, in watching them it does seem they awaken pretty chipper with 9-9.5 hours of sleep, provided they are not sleep-deprived to begin with (ie post- science project or sleepover), in which case they need 10 or 11. Of course, children’s needs can vary based also on the amount of exertion in a day, so be open for minor variations— they (and you) will have to follow their bodily and behavioral cues. If you have a younger child, take note of fussiness as a true signal that your child needs more sleep. My kids always tease me for blaming everything on sleep, and— in the course of occasional emotional outbursts, my kids have been known to preemptively say, “And, no, the reason I’m reacting this way has nothing to do with being sleepy— you always blame sleep.” Note: I see my tendency to blame bad attitudes on sleep deficits not just as smart (and based on known truths about sleep and its link to behavior) but also as compassionate— wouldn’t my kids prefer I blame their orneriness on a sleep deficit rather than on their having a character flaw or generally being troll-like?

2. Translate those goal hours into a target bedtime and wake-up time. Knowing the number of hours we want our children to snooze, we next need to plot out a reasonable bedtime and wake-up time to achieve these goals. This can be trickier than it sounds, as many factors are at play such as school start times (maybe for more than one sibling and at more than one school), how long it takes your child to get ready and eat breakfast in the morning (a plug for breakfast, which is proven to help learning), and how long it takes to get to school. And this is without even mentioning how your will fit your own hygiene and responsibilities into the picture! In the case of my kids, sleeping from 9:30pm until 6:30am (or from 10pm until 7am), will get them the 9 hrs of the sleep they seem to need. Thankfully for our family, these hours work pretty well with our distance from the school and with the school’s start time—phew. I know that for some families, taxing work obligations and bus schedules may make such a schedule impossible. As with everything in life, we must simply do the best we can. Where this schedule puts the squeeze on my family is in the evenings, as we sometimes get home late from work or sports games and then get a late start on dinner, which makes a bedtime of 9:30 a challenge. Still, sleep needs to be a priority. It just has to be. So maybe we need to eat some tuna fish for dinner, or maybe we need to plan ahead for those nights and have some frozen or pre-made options on hand. If we want our kids to be happy, well-behaved (or at least behaving at their best), and alert for good learning and school performance, they need to get as close to their optimal night’s sleep as possible.

3. Take 15 minute baby-steps from the current bedtime to the target bedtime. This step is the heart of our plan and the reason for our need to start our sleep plan ASAP. You see, while procrastination may work in other circumstances, sleep patterns change only as fast as a 15 minute nightly increment, or so the sleep specialists say. So, let’s consider my kids, one of whom currently has a self-imposed bedtime of—again, gulp—something like 12:30am (don’t judge). We need to move that 12:30 am bedtime back 3 hours to 9:30 pm, and to do that the most effectively and with the least consequence of his turning into a zombie, we need to move his bedtime 15 minutes earlier each night. Being 3 hours off-target means being twelve 15-minute steps away from the goal bedtime or twelve days of sleep preparation away from reasonable. We have cut things close! My son’s first night home, he should go to bed at 12:15am, the next night 12 midnight, the next night 11:45pm, etc. Ideally, he would also move the wake-up time 15 minutes earlier each day, so that he would he still get his 9 hours nightly— that is, wake-up at 9:15am on day1, 9am on day 2, etc. That said, I will be totally honest and admit that he actually has pre-season sports obligations at school for some days before school starts that will start at the school start time of 8am. SO, he will be getting less sleep than we wanted, and we really should have started this plan two weeks ago. Oh well. He may slowly turn into a bit of a zombie, but hopefully the worst of his sleepy haze will be over before school starts. We will all just have to do the best we can. He may have to throw in a cat-nap here and there (nothing longer than an hour, which might completely wreck our efforts), or he may have to follow his body’s cues to get to bed a bit earlier than the schedule. And that is fine.

4. Prioritize good sleep hygiene. In addition to trying to get onto a good schedule, we will all need to apply principles of “sleep hygiene,” or healthy habits to promote sleep.These principles are not rocket-science, but they require some forethought.

• No screen time in the hour before stated bedtime. This means having no TV even anywhere nearby, since the lights of the TV will awaken the mind even if out of view. And definitely no video games.

• Digital devices should spend their nights in some other room altogether—not the bedroom. Use an alarm clock to wake-up rather than a smartphone, and don’t buy that bit about night-screen lighting and “Do Not Disturb” settings—the devices are still better at a distance. People still glance at their phones for texts and checks, and that means a part of their brain is still “on” (and interested in how many “likes” or hearts a post has gotten) rather than shutting down

• Plan on a minimum of 30-45 minutes to get ready for bed and to calmly wind down.

• Consider reading an enjoyable, non-school-related, non-stressful, not-too-exciting book or magazine. Or choose downright dry reading material, for that matter (would you like to borrow a medical journal?).

• Consider listening to calming music or sounds of nature (not peppy music!).

• Consider scribbling a short list of gratitudes for the day— peaceful thoughts!

• Consider meditating or breathing deeply— an app like Headspace or CALM can be very helpful in achieving this goal. If new to meditation, you might also check out Goldie Hawn’s book Ten Mindful Minutes, which is aimed at introducing kids to these concepts and skills.

• Consider enjoying a bedtime story with your your parents (even if they are big kids now).

• Consider a warm, relaxing bath, which can really help relaxation (but may add time to the projected bedtime preparations, so you must account for that).

• Make your room dark and preferably a bit cool, and then consider total quiet vs white noise based on your personal preference.

• Exercise earlier in the day will help your quality of sleep, but do NOT do any high-energy, cardio exercise right before bed—endorphins will start flowing and wake you up.

• Eat a healthy diet with dinner preferably not immediately before bedtime (if necessity requires such timing, then a lighter meal will allow for better sleep).

• Do not discuss big life questions or worries right before bed! Parents, keep in mind that kids often ask big questions (such as “What happens after someone dies?”) just as you are kissing them goodnight. But don’t fall for it! Tell them you value their question and will discuss it in the morning.

• Try visualization of one of your favorite places—even imagining walking around there and entering different rooms can be a pleasant descent into dreamland.

• If your child tends to run through a list of worries at night, consider making a “worry box.” Have your child write a few concerns on strips of paper and put them in the box. Then explain that these concerns should be thought about only in very small and deliberate doses at ANOTHER time (for example you can offer to take one strip of paper out tomorrow in the day, to allow the child to worry for 5 minutes max). Let us limit worry time if we can, as thinking about worries makes worries grow, doesn’t solve anything, and shortens sleep.

We all want to be sure our kids are awake and alert for the start of classes, so let’s get right to work on this. Or, shall I say, let’s get right to sleep! I certainly don’t want any zombies anywhere near me! But all this talk about sleep makes me feel like yawning. I mean, doesn’t your pillow call you, too? What time did I go to bed last night? It was only. . .only. . . ZZZZZZ.