By Ann Lukits
To understand teenagers’ sleep habits, look at their parents, a study suggests. When parents go to bed, how long they sleep, and when they wake up may help to shape their children’s sleep patterns during adolescence, according to the study, in the February issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Lack of sleep has been linked to obesity, accidents, substance abuse and other health problems during high school, researchers said. Efforts to improve teen sleep should consider the sleep routines of parents and possibly other family members, they said.
The study, at the University of California in Los Angeles, involved 336 pairs of teens and parents, ages 15 and 42 years old, on average, respectively. Most of the teens, 87%, were born in the U.S. while 81% of parents, mostly mothers, emigrated from Mexico.
The researchers said family togetherness is emphasized in Mexican-American families but it wasn’t known if that was a factor in the sleep patterns of parents and teens.
Over a two-year period, teens and parents documented their sleep habits and daily activities nightly for two weeks in each of the years. Parent-teen relationships also were assessed.
On average, teens slept 8.6 hours on nonschool nights and about 30 minutes less on school nights. Parents went to bed and woke up earlier than teens and slept about 17 minutes less on school nights.
Although parents and teens didn’t always go to bed at the same time, the similarity in their sleep habits was significant: If parents stayed up later or went to bed earlier, teens also stayed up later or went to bed earlier.
The variability in parental bedtimes was more closely related to variability in girls’ bedtimes.
The association between the sleep habits of parents and teens remained significant after adjusting for other factors such as studying, suggesting family sleep routines may shape adolescent sleep over and above other events in their life, researchers said.
The relationship between parent-teen sleep was strongest in larger families and those with greater parental support.
Caveat: The size of the home, type of neighborhood, lighting, noise and family members’ morning and evening preferences weren’t known. It isn’t known if similar sleep patterns would be seen among other ethnic groups, researchers said.
