There comes a time in some people’s lives when their aspirations for their children begin to rival or even exceed their aspirations for themselves.
As a parent myself, I’ve been on a years-long mission to collect as much science-based advice as possible regarding how to raise successful kids.
Here are seven of the most interesting and useful strategies I’ve found and highlighted recently.
Make sure they get enough sleep.
Researchers at the University of Maryland studied 8,300 children aged 9 to 10, focusing on how much sleep they got and what it meant for their success years later.
Kids who slept less than nine hours per night had less grey matter in areas of the brain responsible for attention, memory and inhibition control. These differences persisted after two years, a concerning finding that suggests long term harm.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends that children aged 6 to 12 sleep 9 to 12 hours per night.
Fight for later school start times.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends a start time no earlier than 8:30 a.m. for middle and high schools. But about 85 percent of American public high schools start earlier than that.
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