Does Your Teenager Get Enough Sleep?

Last week, Elk Grove Patch ran a profile of a whose busy schedule means he often wakes up at 4:30 a.m. for swim practice, then doesn't return home until 8:30 p.m. You do the math—that's eight hours of sleep if he leaves no time for homework and goes straight to bed when he comes home, an unlikely scenario for a 17-year-old boy.

For now, the lack of sleep doesn't seem to be hurting Matt Kane: He's acing his classes and has been accepted to West Point. But researchers often lament the detrimental effect that overscheduled lives can have on kids' sleeping habits. Poor sleep has been blamed for everything from obesity to attention-deficit disorder.

Last month, the National Sleep Foundation released its annual Sleep in America poll, in which 22 percent of kids ages 13 to 18 reported regularly feeling sleepy during the day. More than half of them said they surfed the internet every night or almost every night in the hour before going to sleep, a practice scientists say can disrupt the quality of sleep.

Parents, what about your teenager? Is he or she getting enough sleep? Why or why not? And how much is enough?