Health care professionals should counsel parents on sleep requirements for children and ask about their child’s sleep patterns. Sleep is defined as a natural, periodic state of rest for the mind and body.

Sleep allows for:

• Consolidation of cognitive performance (which is required for executive functioning, including abstract reasoning, goal-directed behavior, and creative processing)
• Operation of overnight brain processes thought to influence cognitive, physical, and emotional regulation during the day

Health Risks from Inadequate Sleep

Parents should understand the hazards of their child not getting
enough sleep:

• increased risk of obesity
• mood disorders
• childhood overtiredness, which predicts adolescent poor response inhibition, costly behaviors, driving accidents, and alcohol/cigarette/marijuana use in early adulthood
• mid-adolescent behavior problems such as aggression, depression, anxiety, inattention, overactivity or internalizing problem behavior, and psychosomatic symptoms
• poor school performance (as measured by teacher ratings, grades, achievement tests, and intelligence tests), learning capacity, and neurobehavioral function