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.

    如果你的十几岁的儿子或者女儿又一次错过了校车，不要从厨房里向他们吼叫或者整天地抱怨不休。我们的青少年的身体构造完全不同于成年人，所以有生物学的原因：为什麽他们睡得晚，起得也晚。

    有某一种称为褪黑激素的'黑暗荷尔蒙',它诱发所有人类的睡眠。随着一个人长大，这种褪黑激素的水平降低，这就是为什么你会发现老人们可能会比你想象的要醒来得早很多的原因。这种褪黑激素就好像诱导睡眠的荷尔蒙，本身通常在晚上时间释放。这可以帮助我们去睡眠。对于任何一个成年人，这种激素本身大约在下午 10 点钟释放。不幸的是，对于我们这些可怜的青少年，情况却不是这样。

    青少年只是在夜晚的凌晨 1 点钟释放这种激素。这意味着，即使他们试图去睡觉了，他们直到很晚也不会感到像睡觉。然后当他们不得不在早上醒来的时候发生一种敲击作用。可以把它想像成一个内在的时钟。青少年的时钟被调到在很晚的时间释放褪黑激素，但是事情的发生是在早上，在到了准备上学的时候，青少年内部的生物钟仍然觉得这是晚上时间，这就是为什么他们要努力醒来的缘故。

    很多人指责在青少年房间内触手可及的技术之类是睡晚起晚的诱因。诸如电视、游戏平台、苹果播放器、手机、电脑等，导致你的孩子睡晚，但是这只是你的孩子们用来保持清醒的方式，因为他或她无法入睡。据说这些东西造成褪黑激素本身的释放推迟，但是不管怎样，一个十几岁的孩子具有正好不同于正常成人的心脏节律。他们的睡眠周期不同，他们的睡眠需要更多的--达到 9 个半小时的时间。

    所以如果你发现你的孩子睡懒觉，不要打扰责怪他们，他们需要睡眠，因为他们无法阻止它！ 阻止它只会导致一个喜怒无常的青少年。美国的一些学校已经把他们开始上课的时间调迟一些，使得青少年们能够睡上一个懒觉，这已经被证明有助于他们更好地学习和更好地表现。

    睡眠是好的，你要知道，所以要确保你不损失任何睡眠，而不是像你的孩子那样失去很多睡眠。