Smart but Scattered Kids

When parents bring their children to me for an evaluation because they are concerned about possible executive skill weaknesses, I spend the first part of the assessment process interviewing them about their child. Parents know their children better than any teacher, psychologist, or therapist ever will, and I get a great deal of useful information from that interview. That said, it took me longer than it should have to realize that one of the questions I need to ask parents is about sleep. First of all, I didn’t learn about sleep at all when I was in graduate school, so maybe that’s my excuse. But once I realized I needed to ask about sleep, it began opening windows for me. I had no idea how many children can’t fall asleep at night without a parent lying down with them, or how many kids crawl into bed with their parents in the middle of the night, or may even sleep in their parents’ bedroom. More recently, I’ve come to understand that way too many children have technology in their bedroom—televisions and computers that are too tempting to set aside even as the lights should be turned off. And too many teenagers… Continue reading Can We Talk About Sleep?