It shouldn’t be difficult for anyone to understand just how important sleep is for children. One way or the other, it has a profound effect on the way a child develops both physically and mentally. As a parent, the amount and quality of sleep your child gets should be one of your primary concerns.
According to many people in the child development community, sleep or the lack there of will affect the way a child performs in school. To help you as a parent better understand how sleeping issues might negatively impact your child’s learning, you need to read following information. It will focus on three ways your child’s learning ability can be adversely affected by poor sleeping habits.
Health Issues
As a child’s physical body develops, it needs the recuperate from an active day. it also needs the opportunity to store large amounts of energy to get through the next day. Without the proper amount of sleep, children will move slower and act lethargic. The result of lower energy levels in children often results in weight gain issues.
When a child’s body is in a state of distress, it will eventually affect how their brain functions. That could result in memory retention issues and chemical imbalance problems. Also, the lack of sleep makes children more vulnerable to bacteria and viruses because of a weakened immune system that needs rest to operate at optimum levels.
All of these potential health issues would most likely permeate how a child learns and the way they perform in school. That’s especially true if a child has to miss a lot of school due to chronic illnesses.
Concentration
A major part of learning involves being able to concentrate. If a child is lacking a good night’s sleep, their mind will be dull and prone to wandering. They won’t be able to comprehend what is being said by their teachers, nor will they be able to retain any reasonable portion of the information their teachers are giving.
Remember, learning involves pieces of information that are closely tied together in a progressive manner. A missed fact or two could cascade into the child not learning things they will need to build upon later on. That could eventually evolve into the child getting frustrated with the learning process, causing them to fall further behind the educational development scale.
Mood Issues
It’s not difficult to read children. If they are tired, their mood and attitude will reflect just how tired they really are. While some kids might be prone to temper tantrums, other kids could suffer from varying levels of depression. Also, tired kids have a tendency to act out with bad behavior that leads to problems in the home environment. These kinds of emotional and behavioral issues make it very difficult for children to concentrate on or even care about the learning process.
When children are tired and moody, all they want to do is escape. As a parent, it’s your responsibility to monitor how your child is sleeping. If their sleep patterns don’t proximate what doctors recommend for your child based on their age, you might want to consider talking to your pediatrician about your child’s sleeping issues.
