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Washington Post
33 minutes ago
- Washington Post
My 7-year-old daughter loves to talk in a baby voice. I can't stand it.
Dear Meghan: I have an almost-8-year-old daughter who can speak perfectly fine with proper grammar for her age, but she loves to talk in a squeaky baby voice with bad grammar (think: me want cookie). I cannot stand it. I have tried, 'Please use your 7-year-old voice.' I have given a warning and said, 'I am not going to respond to you if you use a baby voice.' I have tried things like, 'Oh, babies can't go to trampoline parks, so I guess you will have to stay home with Dad.' After these comments, she will switch back to her regular voice. The idea of having to stay home shocks her enough to stop with the baby voice for a few days, but it eventually comes back.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Should You Let Teens Sleep Late During the Summer, Or Wake Them Up?
The mom of a 16-year-old night owl asks: How much sleep do teens need in the summer? Should parents wake up their teens at a semi-decent hour of the morning, or let them sleep? 'He is turning into a vampire, staying up all night and sleeping all day,' Ashley Smith, a middle school teacher, tells about her teen son. 'Is that normal — or am I totally crazy for letting him do his own thing in the summer?' Smith quizzed TikTok for help. 'Question for parents of teenagers, especially teenage boys,' Smith said in a TikTok video. 'How long are we letting them sleep in during the summer — do we wake them up at all?' Parents had different rules for summer bedtimes, responding: 'As long as they want. Summer is for recharging.' 'When they're sleeping, they're not eating all the food. Let them sleep.' 'Two teenagers here. They're sleeping in as long as they want, so they're not bothering me.' 'You never wake a sleeping baby. Same applies with teenagers.' 'We're a farming family, so no, our son can't sleep all day. In summer, he can sleep an hour later than during the school year, so 6:30 a.m.' 'Unless we have plans, I let all the kids sleep. If they have chores or things I need them to do, they can do it when they're up. I don't care if they clean their room at 9 a.m. or 11 p.m., as long as it gets done.' 'Depends on why they're sleeping so much and how late in the day. If they're waking up at 4 p.m. and playing video games until 6 a.m., that's a 'No' for me.' 'Youth is such a short period of time. They have the rest of their lives to have alarms and deadlines. Let them be kids, as carefree as possible, for as long as possible.' 'My parents made me work, volunteer, etc. during the summer. Y'all aren't setting these kids up for success.' 'Why do you think kids grow so much over the summer? ... They are exhausted, they are growing.' 'Summer just started two minutes ago. Let them sleep.' Smith tells that her 15-year-old daughter wakes up around 10 a.m. to hit the pool, while her 16-year-old son has been rising in the late afternoon, after staying up for most of the night playing video games. The lenient bedtime rule, says Smith, is more for her son, who wakes up early during the school year and for part of the summer to attend marching band practice. 'There's a lot of variability for sleep duration across all ages of children,' Dr. Rakesh Bhattacharjee, the director of pediatric sleep medicine at Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego, tells 'For teenagers, the current recommendation is at least eight hours of sleep — and not less,' says Bhattacharjee, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. 'As children get older .... their need for sleep reduces: Babies spend half the day sleeping and adults spend a third of the day sleeping.' Bhattacharjee adds, 'Up to 85% of teenagers are not getting the recommended amount of sleep.' These are the sleep guidelines for children of other ages (including naps for the youngest kids), according to The American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Babies: ages 4 months to 12 months should sleep 12 to 16 hours. Toddlers: ages 1 to 2 years old should sleep 11 to 14 hours. Preschoolers: Ages 3 to 5 years old should sleep 10 to 13 hours. School-aged children: Ages 6 to 12 years old should sleep 9 to 12 hours. Teenagers, Bhattacharjee says, should get 8-10 hours, but he notes, 'There's a range. Some teens can function on 8 hours of sleep while others may need 9 to 10 hours.' You don't have to, but it's OK if you do, and sometimes you should. 'This is an incredibly relatable scenario for many parents of teens,' John Lopos, CEO of the National Sleep Foundation, tells in an email interview. 'There's nothing wrong with checking in on and waking up a teen who's sleeping late into the day, including during summer, especially if they've had the opportunity to get ... a sufficient amount of quality sleep.' Lopos says parents should figure out the reason a teen is sleeping in for so long. 'Are they very sleep deprived from what they are doing late at night into the early morning? How is their mental health? Are there any medical symptoms that are disrupting their sleep at night?' says Lopos, adding that checking in with a medical or mental health professional can help. Teens who don't heed their natural body clocks while playing video games or using other devices at night 'are setting themselves up for a really poor sleep schedule and the consequences for health and performance that can travel with that,' notes Lopos. Even without a reason to wake up during the summer, Lopos recommends a consistent sleep-and-wake schedule for teens, which also helps them adjust to earlier wakeup times as the school year approaches. Without an explicit time at which parents should wake their sleeping teens, Lopos suggests using judgment 'based on reasonable social and activity schedules' and 'the effects of daylight.' 'Our circadian clock needs light during the day, especially sunlight in the morning, also to help our sleep at night,' says Lobos. 'Even with longer summer days, if a teen is sleeping so late into the day that they have less opportunity to get up, get outside and be active in the light, that's another contributor to an unhealthy sleep experience and a pattern of behavior that can have lasting negative effects.' Teens are usually sleep-deprived on weekdays and 'incur a sleep debt,' says Bhattacharjee, adding, 'They sleep more on the weekends to make up for it.' Video games are a frequent offender when it comes to disrupting sleep. "Engaging in video games during the nighttime exposes teenagers to potentially harmful screen time, which can disrupt their circadian rhythm," Bhattacharjee says, noting that video games can have addictive effects, making it harder for kids to stop playing and get the sleep they need. Sleep is involved in learning and memory consolidation, emotional regulation and athletic performance, according to the doctor. He adds that sleep-deprived kids could have higher rates of anxiety and depression, lower scholastic performance, poorer executive functioning and unsafe driving skills. 'Teen boys and girls need about the same amount of sleep .... but teen girls struggle more with sleep than teen boys,' says Bhattacharjee. 'That disparity starts in adolescence and persists throughout adulthood.' This article was originally published on
Fast Company
an hour ago
- Fast Company
I quit TikTok—and got my attention span back
For a few days, my finger would hover over the TikTok hole on my home screen. But it was all for naught: There was nothing there to click. TikTok debuted at exactly the wrong time for me. I downloaded the short-form video app during my junior year of high school, just as in-person activities shut down for the COVID-19 pandemic and my life dissolved into an endless loop of virtual lectures. The infinite scroll was comforting—almost intoxicating. Before long, I was spending multiple hours a day on the platform, with most conversations among friends revolving around which TikToks we'd recently liked. In January 2025, I deleted the app for good. Former President Joe Biden's TikTok ban was looming, and I assumed my friends would be booted off the platform soon enough. It felt like the perfect moment: I could reclaim my media habits, lengthen my attention span, and finally break up with short-form video. Six months later, I have no plans to re-download it. Deleting TikTok saved my attention span For years, I was a double-screener. Fueled by a steady diet of brain-rot TikToks, my eyes would drift toward a second device the moment I started a film or TV show. I tried crocheting and adult coloring books—anything to keep my hands busy while focusing on what was in front of me. Still, I'd grow bored and restless. Eventually, I'd cave, scrolling through X (or worse, TikTok on mute) while the movie played. There are dozens of reasons to delete TikTok—from concerns over Chinese data privacy to simply reclaiming a few hours each day. But for me, the main goal was even simpler: I wanted to reengage with long-form media. And that effort has mostly been successful. I read more now, and watch movies—often with my phone in another room. Sometimes, I even listen to a podcast without touching my screen. Rebuilding my attention span required more than just deleting TikTok. I committed 2025 to investing in my focus. I bought print subscriptions to The New Yorker, New York magazine, and The Atlantic so I could read long-form journalism away from a screen. I subscribed to the Criterion Channel to watch deeper, more thoughtful films than the typical Netflix churn. I bought a Kindle. But I haven't sworn off social media entirely. (No, I did not buy one of those janky ' dumbphones ' or leave my phone mounted to the wall like a landline.) I still spend more time scrolling on X than I'd like, and I'll browse Instagram once every few hours. (Just no Reels: That breaks the short-form ban.) I'm also not uniquely consuming high-brow long-form media: The Real Housewives is still my TV fix of choice. But for the first time since early high school, I can watch a movie without reaching for my phone. That feels like a win. How I warded off TikTok FOMO When I deleted TikTok, my biggest fear was losing cultural literacy. I didn't care about the dances or memes, but I worried about missing out on the latest joke or buzzy TV show. TikTok's walled garden and cultural saturation among Gen Z can make it feel essential, as if not having it means missing something crucial. From the outside, though, I've realized most TikToks are just sludge and noise. I read enough news to know what's trending in film and TV. When I want a thoughtful take, I turn to critics or the occasional YouTube video essay. I don't need a 17-year-old explaining why everyone on Love Island USA is crazy. I remember the first time a friend referenced something I didn't recognize. It was March, and we were making dinner at my college place when he said, 'What the helly.' I thought he'd misspoken; he assumed I hadn't heard him. Turns out, it was a TikTok trend that had taken off after I'd deleted the app. I had feared losing a shared language with my friends, but in that moment, I didn't really care what the reference meant. I just moved on. These days, my friends are more annoyed than I am about my TikTok-free life. They still send me screen recordings of TikToks that remind them of me, usually followed by complaints about the extra effort.
