Let children sleep

With the boon of the internet came globalization and 24/7 commerce. Do we know how to handle all this business?

I could probably find research on a number of benefits and disadvantages of a 24/7 society. However, I would like to relate it to our children and our responsibility to educate and socialize them to be successful inheritors and stewards of this world. I happen to work in a 24/7 establishment and see firsthand how parents are disadvantaging their children by depriving them of adequate sleep. On any given school night, one can find elementary, middle, and high school aged children with a parent browsing, milling about, and searching for nothing in particular or shopping for items that, in my opinion, could have waited for another shopping opportunity. I might be a bit more understanding if the late night shopping was to get medicine or food, but that is not the case.

For example, one early morning at around 2 a.m. on a week night, I encountered a man with a girl who appeared to be about 7 years old. The girl was so tired that she wore it on her face. Dark circles were under her eyes and her father was offering to buy her a craft item or toy. She was so tired that she could not get excited about any of his suggestions for purchase. About an hour later, I encountered them again and the girl was riding in the shopping cart and her father was chatting on the phone with her mother.

In some cases the children can be heard begging their parents to go home. Two teenaged girls were with their mother who was checking out all the new body washes and shampoos. The older girl wanted to go home. The younger one did, too, as evident by her leaning on anything she could find that would support her weary body. The older one started again to entice her mother to leave the store by reminding her mother that it was past her curfew and that she needed to get some sleep. Dad even called on the cell phone and wondered when they were going to come home. At about 1 a.m., the trio finally left the store without purchasing anything.

What are these parents thinking!!! How can a child get up early in the morning and learn the day's lessons in school on less than 8-10 hours sleep. The fact is, that they cannot. Schooling takes discipline and total engagement in activities.

These parents are child abusers. I'm sure that many of them do not realize to what extent that they are harming and disadvantaging their children. However, the fact remains, they are stunting their children's growth emotionally, psychologically, and socially. These parents should put their children's needs above their own and make sure that they are given every advantage to learn and become all that they can be. Adequate sleep is a key component in the process of becoming productive citizens.

Let the children sleep. We will all benefit from their growth into healthy contributors to the 24/7 global society in due time.