Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 12, 1990                   TAG: 9003102511
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: TRISH HALL THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

AS FAMILY STRUCTURES SHIFT, KIDS' BEDTIMES GET LATER

"We're not disciplined people," says Cecchetti, whose wife, Ruth Charney, is a mathematician.

Bedtime was far different when he was growing up. "My father had rules," said Cecchetti. "You could fight, but it wouldn't do any good."

In many American households, a child's bedtime has become a flexible matter. While parents remember being sent to bed at 7 p.m., their children are going to sleep at 9, 10 or even 11 at night.

Almost all the experts agree bedtimes are later and structure less rigid because of the increasing number of single-parent families and dual-income families.

"Kids are staying up late because they want to see their parents," said Ellen Galinsky, a child development expert who is co-president of the Families and Work Institute in New York.

Some are up late because their hectic lives leave them wound up. Others are watching hours of television. And some parents are unable or unwilling to exert the kind of authority over their children that earlier generations did.

"As long as they're getting enough sleep, it doesn't make too much difference," said Richard Ferber, director of the Center for Pediatric Sleep Disorders at the Children's Hospital in Boston and an assistant professor of neurology at the Harvard Medical School.

Indeed, later hours can be a sign children are participating in a rich family life.

Morris Wessel, a pediatrician in New Haven who is a clinical professor of pediatrics at Yale, said some children go to sleep because they are bored. "If the parents don't stimulate their kids, it's not worth staying awake," he said.

But late bedtimes can become a problem when a child starts school and can no longer sleep later in the morning or take naps. Bedtime then must be changed to allow for earlier rising.

Some parents are apparently not making the change. School officials report an increase in the number of children who are cranky and tired.

"We have kids who can tell me what's on David Letterman," said Susan Korn, the guidance counselor at Public School 3 in New York. "They're so tired, they're really not focused."

The change in bedtime seems to be occurring in big cities and small towns, among the rich and the poor. "I have first graders going to bed at 9:30 or 10," said Ruth Tetschner, principal of the elementary school in Dallas, Pa., a small town in the northeastern part of the state. "One first grade teacher has had children fall asleep in the classroom."

Teachers, pediatricians and therapists who specialize in children and families say that children tend to go to bed earlier when they are from families where one parent stays home during the day. When both parents work, the evening's activities begin and end later.

Nancy Lisagor, editor of a new magazine in Philadelphia called Metro Kids, says her two sons, who are 4 years old and 15 months old, go to bed at 8:30 or 9. "I think that's terribly late," she said.

But she said they aren't ready to sleep earlier. "They get excited at the end of the day when everybody is all together," she said.

Later bedtimes represent a greater integration of the child into the evening life of the family.

"We've always been a society that was split in terms of children and adults," said Yvonne Young, a New York social worker who sees children and families.

In Europe, there is more mingling of different ages. When Ilkie Pesenti moved to New York from Milan five years ago, she was shocked to see American parents putting their children to bed at 7.

"It's very convenient," she said. "But do they really go to sleep? And when do they get to see their parents?" Children in Italy often join their parents on evening outings, especially in the summer when they don't have to get up for school.

Not all children need the same amount of sleep. Ferber of the Pediatric Sleep Center said some parents expect a child to sleep for 12 hours and become frustrated when the child who needs only 10 hours refuses to go to sleep or stay asleep.

Like adults, children today generally have busier lives that leave them tired but restless at the end of the day. Many of them attend special programs before and after school because both parents are working. Like their parents, they seem to use the weekend to catch up on sleep.

Generally, schools say preschool and elementary school children from families with two working parents tend to go to bed at 9:30 or 10, while children from households in which one parent stays home tend to go to bed at 7:30 or 8.