Pediatricians have noticed that teens are not getting enough sleep and they have a plan on how to help that. Start schools later in the day.

On average, a typical teen would require up to 9 1/2 hours of sleep each night. However, research indicates that by the age of 18, teenagers tend to get an average of under seven hours.

Not getting enough sleep has been shown to cause a variety of problems in all areas of life. Bad performance in school, depression, obesity and an increased rate of car accidents are just a few of the issues that have been linked to sleep deprivation in teenagers.

Part of the reason teens are not getting enough sleep comes from the fact that their age-related sleep cycles can hinder their ability to fall asleep before 11 at night, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). With start times for school as early as 7:30 a.m., these natural sleep cycles put kids at risk for being sleep deprived.

Discussing these problems in a new study, the AAP recommends that schools push their start time for middle and high schools back until at least 8:30.

The suggested policy has been tried by some schools, mostly those with smaller school districts. The Kansas city district attempted to adjust the schedules by starting the elementary schools earlier, the middle and high schools later and staggering the bus routes to provide transportation to everyone.

Parents did not embrace the change. The biggest complaint involved the small children who were left to wait for the bus in the early morning. Other complaints involved the parents’ dependence on the teenagers to come home with the younger kids and provide childcare. Jobs, extracurricular activities and homework concerns were also an issue.

Experts say that the policy will likely work better if more school enact it, thereby syncing up after school schedules, such as start times for sporting events. Pediatricians in support of this change assert that the evidence to support its necessity is strong. Schools need to work with children to help support their education, growth and health, they say.