Back to School: Preparing for Good Sleep

With the beginning of school quickly approaching, it’s almost time to say goodbye to the relaxed schedules (and late nights!) of summertime. Creating a good school routine takes preparation and establishing good sleep schedules with parents' support is key in helping your children perform at their best. When kids don’t get enough sleep they can often be irritable, easily frustrated or hyper, and have behavior problems. They may also have trouble learning and paying attention in school. 

The National Sleep Foundation recommends the following guidelines for the amount of sleep needed.

• Preschoolers (ages 3-5) require 10-13 hours

• School-age children (ages 6-13) require 9-11 hours of sleep

• Teenagers (ages 14-17) require 8-10 hours of sleep

Tips to Help Your Child Sleep

• Begin adjusting from summer to school routine the week prior to school starting. Adjust bedtimes in 15-minute increments. For example, have your child wake up 15 minutes earlier and go to bed 15 minutes earlier. Gradually adjust every few days until you’ve reached your desired sleep and wake goals.

• Set regular wake and sleep times.

• Turn off the screens at least an hour before bedtime and keep cell phones and computers out of the bedroom.

• Create a wind-down time: read together, listen to music, reflect on your day, etc.

• Avoid caffeine (soda, chocolate, tea) in the late afternoon or evening. 

• Limit napping in adolescents.

• Make sure children get enough exercise during the day.

• Create an optimal sleep environment: keep bedrooms dark, cool and quiet.

• Keep to a sleep schedule- even on weekends. Aim for sleep-wake and bedtimes to be no more than an hour different than the weekday routine

— Laura Super/ Certified Life Coach

What Can a Life Coach Do?

A Coach helps you to act where you may be feeling frozen or stuck. If you are feeling uncertainty, fear, stress, or anxiety, a Coach will help you get reoriented with your goals by helping you take steps to where you want to go.

Here’s what one of our clients shared about her Life Coach, Laura Super.

“Sharing a deeply personal struggle is so hard, but Laura’s ability to listen, hear my heart, and love me through it has made all the difference. I am so thankful for her ability to bring truth, counseling tools, scripture, personal experience, and grace into my struggle. Her guidance and God-given intuition helped bring me to a healthy plan of restoration. I am thankful for Laura’s patience, insight, and wisdom.”

— Laura Super, Life Coach

How a Flexible Mindset Helps Us Respond to Challenges in Healthy Ways

Taking a pause, and asking ourselves questions allows us to take time to look at the big picture: Is there another way to look at this? How am I interpreting the situation? Should I get someone else’s perspective?

As a child, I was never very flexible; touching my toes seemed almost impossible. I envied my friends, who could naturally bend in all sorts of configurations. However, I learned with some regular stretches; I could loosen up and touch my toes. Now, as I have aged, I realize the importance of remaining flexible; it stretches the muscles and keeps them from becoming stiff.

Developing a flexible mindset, in such ever-changing times requires a similar approach, regularly exercising new ways to adapt to stressful events and unplanned circumstances. When we have a fixed mindset, we might believe we don’t have the ability or the skills to deal with the problem.

When this happens, we often lose the ability to look at the big picture and respond in a logical or creative way. To help us develop a flexible mindset that responds, as opposed to a fixed mindset that reacts, we first need to hit the pause button. 

Taking a pause is crucial for parents. A flexible mindset can make a difference in how we respond to the ever-changing challenges we face in raising our children. For example, if your child is starting to struggle in school, or perhaps begins to argue with limits set, taking a pause to think through what may be motivating the problem or behavior can give you a better perspective on how to respond. Are they struggling with frustration or fear? Do they understand what is expected of them? Are they getting enough sleep?

Hitting the pause button gives us time to figure out how to handle our emotions and mentally prepare how to handle each circumstance. Just as stretching and pausing take time for the muscles to respond, so will learning to actually hit the pause button and find flexible ways to respond to stressful, difficult, and ever-changing situations.

— Laura Super, Life Coach