Why Johnny Can't Sleep

"If Johnny starts his algebra at the age of eight this year, why then Tommy will start his at the age of seven next. Have we all gone just a little bit mad?" asks Physician Thomas Charles Dann in a current issue of the British Medical Journal.

Dr. Dann, who is the resident physician at Britain's University of Warwick, recently discovered that friends were giving their ten-year-old son a sleeping tablet because the youngster was too restless and exhausted to go to sleep even at 11 p.m. The boy had to do two hours of homework every night, attended choir practice until 9:30 p.m. twice a week, and also went to school on Saturday mornings.

The school in this case happened to be a local prep academy that tries hard to make its students eligible for scholarships to Britain's more prestigious private schools. But Dann says that the problem of overworking youngsters is almost as bad in Britain's state-run public schools. The trouble is, he notes, "parents feel they must get the most out of their children, and they never stop to count the cost. How can anyone ever justify inducing insomnia in a ten-year-old?"

Instead, Dann suggests, British parents should teach their children that getting high grades and winning prizes are not the most important things in life. He also criticizes doctors who prescribe tranquilizers and sedatives for children, and urges them to speak out against the cruelty of overcompetitiveness. "We know you can teach a baby to swim before it can walk," he adds, "but what on earth for?" One Oxford don adjudged the current crop from English prep schools to be "all burnt out" by the time they get to the university. Laments Dann: "How bitter it must be to have shot one's bolt by the age of 20."

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