Sunday night, I found an article on how to help your kid deal with Daylight Savings Time… Are you kidding me? This article was actually titled: Daylight savings time wreaks havoc on kids’ sleep: Expert Advice.
I found it when I was going through the Lifestyle section of The Washington Post. Believe it or not, I do tire of blogging about politics sometimes, regardless of the wealth of material there – like the speculation among conservatives that Rick Perry was drunk during a recent speech, just because he showed signs of a pulse while giving it.
So, I went looking for something different that peaked my interest, or ire, and turned to The Washington Post's "Lifestyle" section. That’s where I turned up this gem of an article. The gist of it was that Daylight Savings Time is somehow detrimental to kids' sleep cycles and here's advice on how to get them past it.
In small defense of the author of this piece, Janice D'Arcy, she was basically reposting something written by another author (Kim West, “The Sleep Lady”, if you can buy that title). My question is, why do we need an article on that? Once upon a time, didn't kids just deal with the time change like any other day and night?
I always looked forward to the “fall back” portion of the year, even when I was very young, because it’s one more hour I get to sleep in. So, I think it's a valid question when I ask: are we raising a generation of “wusses”?
With the blogging explosion that has taken place in the last couple of years has come a huge number of parenting blogs. There are ones to validate anyone’s method of parenting – let the kids run loose, never let the kids out of your sight, teach your kids to be independent, applaud them every time they use the potty. Whatever your flavor of parenting, there’s a blog telling you that you’re right.
Along with that explosion, I’ve noticed a rise in the amount of advice on how to “ease” your child into any number of life events. And, at the same time (unsurprisingly, in my mind), there is a similar rise in the number of people wondering why their now-adult child won’t grow up and looking for advice on how to remedy the situation.
Welcome to my worst nightmare.
And that is why I choose to ignore the advice of this article. My flavor of parenting happens to be the kind where I tell my young offspring what Daylight Savings Time is, and here's how it works. I say, “Hey, guess what? You get to sleep in a bit longer this Sunday, and enjoy it while you can, because in a couple of months, you get shortchanged again.”
Why is that hard? Why do I need to “prepare” my child for what is really nothing more than changing the time on the clocks.
Easing my kid into it just sounds stupid to me. Maybe The Sleep Lady should try tackling REAL sleep issues, like chronic sleep walking or night terrors. Daylight Savings Time? Sounds like the biggest non-issue possible to me.
-- Statler, forum moderator
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