Supporters and opponents of home-schooling have a lot of valid arguments, but new research indicates that one thing is for sure: home-schooled children sleep better.
In the first study of its kind, researchers at National Jewish Health in Denver charted the sleep patterns of 2,612 students, including nearly 500 who are home-schooled. They found that adolescent home-schooled students slept an average of 90 minutes more per night than public and private school students, who were in class an average of 18 minutes before home-schooled children even awoke.
“Adolescents need nine hours of sleep a night and if they’re only getting seven hours, on average, by the end of the week they are a full ten hours of sleep behind schedule,” said Dr. Lisa Meltzer, the lead author of the study, “and that impacts every aspect of functioning.”
The study concluded that more than half (55%) of teens who were home-schooled got the optimal amount of sleep per week, compared to just 24.5% of those who attend public and private schools. Conversely, 44.5% of public and private school teens got insufficient sleep during the school week, compared to only 16.3% of home-schooled teens.
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