If they had their way, most teens probably would like to start their school days around, oh, 11 a.m. or so.

While that’s not likely to happen, the American Academy of Pediatrics says school-going youth could benefit from a later start to the school day.

The pediatricians say “chronic sleep loss has increasingly become the norm.” In fact, most high schoolers get less than seven hours of sleep a night, though doctors say they should be getting between eight and 10 hours. That’s a problem, because that lack of sleep has been linked not just to poor grades, but bad health, car accidents and other issues.

The solution, pediatricians say, is to start school at 8:30 a.m. or later, but school experts say that’s not often an option. Just juggling bus schedules to accommodate a later start time would be daunting, to say nothing about after-school activities. Starting school later might mean football practice might not end until well after dinnertime, thereby shrinking the available time teens have to do homework.

Teens should stay up later to do the necessary work, of course, but that defeats the purpose. (Associated Press)

Paul Asay has written for The Washington Post, Christianity Today, Beliefnet.com and The (Colorado Springs) Gazette. He writes about culture for PluggedIn and wrote the Batman book God on the Streets of Gotham (Tyndale). He recently collaborated with Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family, on his book The Good Dad. He lives in Colorado Springs with wife, Wendy, and his two children. Follow him on Twitter.