If your teenage son or daughter is late for the school bus again, don't yell at them from the kitchen or complain all day long. Us teenagers' bodies are built completely differently to that of adults so we have a biological reason as to why we sleep late and wake up late.

    There is a certain 'darkness hormone' called melatonin that induces sleep in all human beings. As a person beings to grow older, this melatonin's levels are reduced which is why you might find that old age people may wake up a lot earlier than you'd imagine. This melatonin is like a sleep inducing hormone that releases itself normally at night times. This helps us go to sleep. For any adult, this hormone releases itself at about 10 pm. Unfortunately, for your poor teen, it isn't so.

    Teenagers only release this hormone at about 1 pm at night. This means that even if they try to go to bed, they don't feel like sleeping until quite late. This then has a knock on effect when they have to wake up in the morning. Think of it as an internal clock. Teenagers' clocks are set to release melatonin much late but what happens is in the morning, when it's time to get ready for school, the teenagers' internal clocks still feel it is night time which is why they struggle to wake up.

    A lot of people blame things like the availability of technology in the teenagers' rooms as a sign of sleeping late and waking up late. Things like TV, gaming consoles, iPods, mobile phones, computers etc are causing your teenager to sleep late but these are just ways that your teen uses to stay awake because he or she can't go to sleep. It is said that things like these cause the melatonin release to postpone itself but either way, a teen has just a different cardiac rhythm to that of a normal adult. Their sleep cycles are different and their need for sleep is more – up to 9 and a half hours.

    So don't bother blaming your teenager if you find they are sleeping in, they need it because they can't help it! Preventing it will just lead to a moody teenager. Some schools in America have set the starting time of their classes later so the teens can have a lie in and this has been proved to help them study better and perform better.

    Sleep is good, you know, so make sure you don't lose any sleep over your teenager losing a lot of sleep.

    如果你的十幾歲的兒子或者女兒又一次錯過了校車，不要從廚房里向他們吼叫或者整天地抱怨不休。我們的青少年的身體構造完全不同于成年人，所以有生物學的原因：為什麼他們睡得晚，起得也晚。

    有某一種稱為褪黑激素的'黑暗荷爾蒙',它誘發所有人類的睡眠。隨著一個人長大，這種褪黑激素的水平降低，這就是為什么你會發現老人們可能會比你想象的要醒來得早很多的原因。這種褪黑激素就好像誘導睡眠的荷爾蒙，本身通常在晚上時間釋放。這可以幫助我們去睡眠。對于任何一個成年人，這種激素本身大約在下午 10 點鐘釋放。不幸的是，對于我們這些可憐的青少年，情況卻不是這樣。

    青少年只是在夜晚的凌晨 1 點鐘釋放這種激素。這意味著，即使他們試圖去睡覺了，他們直到很晚也不會感到像睡覺。然后當他們不得不在早上醒來的時候發生一種敲擊作用。可以把它想像成一個內在的時鐘。青少年的時鐘被調到在很晚的時間釋放褪黑激素，但是事情的發生是在早上，在到了準備上學的時候，青少年內部的生物鐘仍然覺得這是晚上時間，這就是為什么他們要努力醒來的緣故。

    很多人指責在青少年房間內觸手可及的技術之類是睡晚起晚的誘因。諸如電視、游戲平臺、蘋果播放器、手機、電腦等，導致你的孩子睡晚，但是這只是你的孩子們用來保持清醒的方式，因為他或她無法入睡。據說這些東西造成褪黑激素本身的釋放推遲，但是不管怎樣，一個十幾歲的孩子具有正好不同于正常成人的心臟節律。他們的睡眠周期不同，他們的睡眠需要更多的--達到 9 個半小時的時間。

    所以如果你發現你的孩子睡懶覺，不要打擾責怪他們，他們需要睡眠，因為他們無法阻止它！ 阻止它只會導致一個喜怒無常的青少年。美國的一些學校已經把他們開始上課的時間調遲一些，使得青少年們能夠睡上一個懶覺，這已經被證明有助于他們更好地學習和更好地表現。

    睡眠是好的，你要知道，所以要確保你不損失任何睡眠，而不是像你的孩子那樣失去很多睡眠。