How to tell if your kid is getting enough sleep

By Joe Morgan via SWNS

Children who get poor sleep show it in their faces, according to a study.

While sleep is important for anyone, scientists say that young people need sleep to grow and develop - and a lack of shuteye can impact their physical and mental health.

Even after just a few nights of less sleep, new research has found that a child's ability to focus, concentrate and react is changed.

Parents may even be able to spot incidental changes to their son or daughter's expression that show they had a lack of sleep.

Inadequate sleep in children affects their emotional functioning in ways that may predict longer-term social problems, the study also found.

Researchers examined 37 children between the ages of 7 and 11 during two in-lab emotional assessments; one when children were well-rested and another after two nights of partial sleep restriction.

During these assessments, children viewed positive (think kittens and ice cream) and negative (think getting a shot and ferocious dogs) pictures on a computer screen while a high-definition camera recorded their facial expressions.

Participants’ parents provided reports of their child’s social functioning at that time and approximately two years later.

Professor Candice Alfano, from the University of Houston in the US, said: "Sleep problems in children are routinely linked with lower social competence and more problems in peer relationships, but we really don’t understand what drives these associations.

"As we suspected, children who displayed less positive facial expressions in response to pleasant images when sleep-restricted were reported to have more social problems two years later, even when controlling for earlier social problems."

Prof Alfano added: “For younger children, more explicit behaviors such as sharing and taking turns may be more important for friendships than subtle facial expressions.

"However, emotional expression becomes more important with age.

"Facial expressions not only provide others with an understanding of how you are feeling but are known to have a contagion effect on how others feel.”

The study was published in the journal Affective Science.