 |
 |
|||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
Insomnia (Behavioral Insomnia of Childhood |
||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||
|
for Insomnia or Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome or other sleep problems. |
||||||||||||
| Insomnia (Behavioral Insomnia of Childhood or Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome) | ||||||||||||
|
Does your child or teenage have difficulty falling asleep at night, resist sleep until late at night, and then have difficulty waking up in the morning? If so, your child may have one of two forms of insomnia: (1) If your child is under 10 years of age, s/he may have Behavioral Insomnia of Childhood (BIC), or (2) If your child is over 10 years of age, s/he may have Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (DSPS). Either one of these forms of insomnia can cause your child daytime irritability, defiance, lethargy, lack of motivation, and excessive daytime sleepiness. As a result, your child or adolescent may have trouble waking up of a morning, and therefore, may have many tardies or absences. Your child or adolescent may even exhibit some of the symptoms of Depression, Bi-polar Disorder, Attention Deficit Disorder, or Oppositional Defiant Disorder due to his/her lack of sleep or sleep deprivation. These children sometimes appear to have learning problems, a learning disability, or even an emotional disturbance or emotional handicap. If this problem is not corrected quickly, it can negatively impact your child’s grades and result in retentions and having to repeat failed classes. Many students with DSPS end up dropping out of high school because they get too far behind in school and cannot catch up. If these problems sound like your child or adolescent, read the information below to find out how to screen and treat your child for BIC or DSPS quickly before his/her grades and schooling suffers: Insomnia in adolescents is usually referred to as Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (DSPS). It is a circadian rhythm disorder and form of insomnia, which is very common in adolescents (about 7%), but can occur in earlier childhood. The occurrence of Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome in adolescence appears to be caused by biological changes in the circadian rhythm during puberty, where the teen's internal clock becomes significantly longer than the typical 24 hour cycle and causes insomnia. This results in the teen having difficulty falling asleep before 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. on school nights. Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome usually develops, or is intensified by poor lifestyle habits or poor sleep hygiene in teenagers. They stay up half the night on weekends (i.e., talking to friends, playing computer and video games, etc.), and then they cannot switch back to an earlier bedtime on school nights due to their longer circadian rhythm cycle. Consuming many caffeine drinks, smoking, or taking drugs that prevent or delay sleep onset often exacerbate these insomnia problems even more. If these problems are not corrected quickly in middle school or the early high school years, many of these students obtain very low grades and may not graduate due to their inability to wake up and stay alert in school. These students are often tardy to school, absent frequently, or tired and falling asleep in morning classes. In the case of preschoolers or elementary students showing signs of insomnia and scoring high on the Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome scale of the Sleep Disorders Inventory for Students, this insomnia is more often caused by parents failing to enforce good sleep habits with their child. In this case, it is more commonly referred to as “Behavioral Insomnia of Childhood” than Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome or Insomnia, since younger children are not experiencing the biological changes of puberty that lengthen their circadian wake-sleep cycle, which is a common cause of Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. The young child's Insomnia often develops when a parent does not require a consistent naptime, bedtime, or wake up time for their child every day. The child gets used to going to sleep at the same time as the parents or falling asleep on the couch watching TV or in the car chair going somewhere at night. The child starts resisting going to sleep on their own and may demand to have the parent with them to fall asleep, or they want to stay up until everyone goes to bed at night. If the child is placed in his/her bed after they fall asleep, they may get up and come to the parents bed if s/he awakens in the night. This can cause many daytime problems for the child such as excessive daytime sleepiness, irritability and oppositional behaviors, crying or tantrumming more than is typical for a child of that age, or even ADHD-like behaviors of distractibility, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. If it sounds like your child or adolescent may be struggling with Insomnia in the form of Behavioral Insomnia of Childhood or Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome, you can click the button below to SCREEN your child or teen for these sleep disorders and other common pediatric sleep disorders that can cause Insomnia. If your child has a major sleep disorder, this screening will give you a report that is several pages in length. The report contains information about the sleep disorder, many possible interventions to correct it, and the contact information to find sleep specialists in your local area that can help you if the report- interventions are not successful. However, the interventions are usually successful in most cases of Behavioral Insomnia of Childhood or Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome if the parents implement the interventions consistently and unwaveringly! You can get this information quickly by clicking “Screen Child” below and screening your child if s/he is between the ages of 2 and 19 years of age. If your child is above 10 years of age, s/he should complete the sleep disorders screening inventory with you for it to be the more accurate. |
||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||
| Copyright 2007, Child Uplift Inc. - All Rights Reserved | ||||||||||||
