Throughout the ongoing years, there has been a heart-breaking increase in adolescents reporting mental health issues. 42% of school students reported depression, 22% thought about suicide, and 10% actually took their own life. Sadly, depression isn’t the only mental health issue that children run into; another major one is anxiety. What do these effects come as a result of? Long school weeks. School places a large amount of pressure on these students, and eliminating at the very least 1 day from the school week might help the students cope with their problems. If we look at colleges all throughout our nation, there are no school days on Fridays. If students need extra help after school hours, there are always office hours and additional …show more content…
Sufficient amounts of sleep will benefit kids by, “help[ing] [them] think more clearly, have quicker reflexes and focus better,” which is a key factor when it comes to school. (The Benefits of Slumber) Kids will be able to perform better when it comes to school, and the teachers' morales will be boosted when they see their children being full of motivation. Restless children will sleep deprivation will not only underperform in school, but will also face numerous, “chronic health problems, including heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, obesity, and depression.” (What are Sleep Deprivation and Deficiency?) Having less sleep will make the students have terrible physical and mental health, while also making their grades drop. Students in regular 5 day school weeks aren’t able to get the necessary rest they need, and multiple studies have shown that it may lead to drops in grades. It was found that, “every lost hour of average nightly sleep at the start of an academic term was associated with a 0.07-point drop in a student’s end-of-term GPA. When a student slept less than six hours a night, the effect of lost sleep on a student’s grades was even more pronounced,” showing that sleep is an absolute necessity for children to do better in school. (The less college students sleep, the worse their grades, study finds) Having …show more content…
Some parents do work longer hours than others, and their schedules do not line up with those of their children. Picking them up and finding them a ride would be difficult. However, there are actually an adequate amount of solutions to this problem. One of them would be teaching the kids how to take public transportation. It will teach them how to be more responsible and take care of themselves. As high school students, this is an important skill because they will eventually be moving on to college and become full grown adults with responsibilities. Not only is this a great solution, but it teaches the kids important life lessons and habits that they will need throughout their lives. Another solution would be to sign the children up for extracurricular activities in the schools. They could learn instruments, play sports, or even work on their homework at school. Picking up an instrument or getting active in sports will not only get rid of the time problem, but it will also help the students mental and physical health. Doing homework at school or going tutoring will help the kids when it comes to their home life because they then have more time to release their stress and rest. Finally, another solution to this problem would be to carpool with friends. It will not only solve the problem, but it will help the kids develop important and