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On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti

What happens when American teens get more sleep

On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti

WBUR

On Point, News, Npr, Daily, Talk Show

4.33.9K Ratings

🗓️ 3 August 2022

⏱️ 48 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The typical teen body clock and the typical school start time are out of synch. California is pushing back the start of the high school day. Other districts already have. Did it work? Lisa L. Lewis joins Meghna Chakrabarti.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is on point, I'm Magna Chacrabardi.

0:02.7

Well, it's August, which means back to school season is on its way.

0:08.5

New teachers, new friends, and some old challenges too.

0:14.5

Like that feeling of resignation in the mornings when parents have to take a deep breath,

0:21.4

square their shoulders, and gingerly open the door to rouse their slumbering teenager,

0:29.4

who either gives you absolutely no response at all from under that disheveled mountain of sheets or at best gives you this.

0:38.4

So, yeah.

0:40.4

Well, that's soon to be 16-year-old Stokely Wexler of Columbia, Missouri, and to be fair, Stokely was actually completely awake.

0:52.4

When we talk with him about whether he gets enough sleep and he says he does not, and most people he knows don't either.

0:59.4

Just about six hours a night, he says, when he knows he should be getting around nine.

1:03.4

People are really stripped of heart, because like they stay up so late doing homework in middle school,

1:08.4

not that much, but in high school there's so much more.

1:10.4

So you do stay up later doing that, and then that pushes your bedtime back, which pushes your what time you wake up back as well.

1:19.4

But also just like social media and stuff, it's like really easy just to get lost in that, just like scrolling endlessly, you know?

1:27.4

Stokely, come on man, on behalf of your parents, there is a quick fix for that problem, put the phone away.

1:37.4

Okay, but I honestly, I still get it. I get it. Nights are tough. Mornings even tougher.

1:43.4

Because I need to like get dressed, get all my t*** together, eat.

1:48.4

Take the dog for walk, sometimes do homework if I didn't do it last night.

1:56.4

Well Stokely is going to be a high school sophomore, and in Columbia, Missouri, that alone should bring him some sleep relief.

2:04.4

Because back in 2013, the district decided to move its high school start time later to 8.55 am, almost an hour later than the national average.

2:16.4

So when Stokely moved from middle school to high school last September, he started school 90 minutes later.

2:24.4

And mom Amy says the change made a big difference.

...

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