I taach a cross categorical sp ed class. One of my students an 11 year old boy, is extremely inattentive and hyperactive, I’ve noticed that he often has difficulty keeping his head off the desk and yawns often. He says he watches TV with his 18 yeaar old brother till after midnight. When I phoned his mother about this concern, she said it was true. He sneaks over to the brother’s room after she is asleep. She asked me if I thought his lack of sleep could affect his learning?!!!
She doesn’t seem to want to change the situation though. One day the student came to school very calm and stayed on-task, got his work done (correctly) and was much more pleasant.He said his brother had been out of town the night before so he couldn’t watch TV as his brother locked his room. Is it possible that his hyperactivity and inattentiveness is really his way of dealing with exhaustion?
I’m interested in your opinions and experiences.
Re: sleepiness or hyperactivity?
Could be. Maybe he’s hyperactive because he’s trying to keep himself awake. When I’m tired, I shift back and forth in my chair, shift my position, anything to keep me from nodding off.
Re: sleepiness or hyperactivity?
When my son was experiencing sleep problems, I did a lot of reading on the subject and found that sleep is an important part of a persons ability to stay focused and their behavior. When a person doesn’t get the proper amount of sleep and the proper amount of cycles, their brain tries to have micro naps during the day and then the behavior starts changing in order to stay awake physically. This is not only bad for the persons attention span but very unhealthy. Our bodies not only have a sleep cycle but healing cycles during sleep. My son was never allowed to stay up late but has always had sleep difficulties. He would always be worse in the afternoons opposed to the mornings. Of course before I started educating myself, I was giving him a big sugar high in the mornings with a huge bowl of Count Chocula or Coco Pepples and such. That would get him awake till lunch then the behavior was what had to keep him going thru the day. A good diet and plenty of rest are key ingredients in healthy behavior. Sounds like the brother is a bad influence and the mother needs to set some guidelines.
There has been some research done on kids who don’t get enough sleep for various reasons, including sleep apnea (where their breathing patterns keep them from going into a good deep sleep). Very often when sleep issues were addressed, ADD behaviors improved or disappeared altogether.