Please Don't Wake Me...

Teenage pupils in Scotland are to be taught how to get a good night's rest in an attempt to improve performances at school. Instruction packs that include lesson plans on how to help grumpy teenagers to sleep better will be distributed to Scottish teachers later this month. The packs, which were formulated by charity Sleep Scotland in conjunction with Lothians further education centre Jewel & Esk College, aim to teach pupils tips such as the importance of avoiding watching television, playing computer games or surfing the internet late into the night, as well as the importance of a bedtime routine.

From The Scotsman

A friend of mine suggested to me to look at Tuesday's edition of The Scotsman newspaper as there was a story ideal for a rant. Having seen the above story on-line, I knew immediately to what he was referring.

Back in the early 1970s, I didn't need lessons on how to sleep. Usually, I slept during lessons at school as my maths teacher Mrs Lennie would point out by hurling a wooden blackboard duster at me. When my own two children were teenagers they needed no lessons at all in the art of sleeping. Both Laura and Michaela would lie limp and unresponsive until I was forced to shove a mirror under their noses to check for breathing.

When they would eventually make grunting noises, they would burrow beneath the covers, struggling to stretch 'five more minutes' as far as they possibly could. 'Five minutes' would turn into ten, then twenty then half an hour before all hell let loose and their raging father - never at his best in the mornings anyway - would launch a tirade at them to rise from their slumber. Michaela would fall out of bed, bleary-eyed, and eventually make her way to school. Laura just didn't bother - but that's another story.

Now, the behaviour of my generation - when we threatened our offspring with the toe of our tackety boots if they didn't get up out of bed - is frowned upon. Now, the little darlings have to be taught how to sleep, therefore getting out of bed in the morning will no longer be a problem. Personally, I don't see the need for 'instruction packs'. Just take away their computers, IPods, mobile phones, televisions, games consoles and all the other contraptions that I didn't have when I was a lad and get them to bed at a decent time such as 10.30pm - and not 2.30am after having commented 'like' on their ten millions friends status on Facebook.

Someone please tell me it isn't just me who thinks the world is going mad....