An Oxford University neuroscientist has deemed the act of making teenagers get up early to go to school is "cruel". Usually, when someone says something like this, people tend to think that they're lying, just "pandering" to teenagers, or giving them the soft option. This is mostly because people seem to get a kick out of being unnecessarily nasty to teenagers rather than anything evidence based, because the science stacks up. The natural circadian rhythm changes as we age - children and old people are larks, teenagers are night owls and most adults are somewhere in the middle. These shifts correlate pretty precisely with hormonal changes, which spike in adolescence and decline in later years. You're likely to think that a teenager is being "lazy" simply because you find it easier to get up in the morning. And no, you did just learn to "suck it up" when you became an adult, your biology changed. The average teenager needs about nine hours of sleep a night, which is more than an adult anyway, even without the shift in sleep patterns, but many could only be getting an average of about five. This has a massive knock on effect in not only their academic performance, but blood-glucose and grehlin regulation that leaves them vulnerable to diabetes, obesity and hypertension. Schools that have pushed their start times back to 10am have seen an increase in both academic performance and attendance as well as a decrease in sleeping in class and even depression. Apart from anything else, there's no good reason why you wouldn't push school start times back and there's certainly no good reason to make things difficult for teenagers on purpose. Teenagers may be a strange breed, but you were a teenager once and you turned out all right. So, maybe we should cut them a little bit of slack and leave them to experiment with seapunk, facial piercings and semi-ironic hairstyles whilst it's still socially acceptable to do so.
