I think we often underestimate the importance of sleeping and eating routines for our children, particularly since they have a tendency to nibble all day and sleep in for as long as they want, if they stay up late, and particularly in the summer.

Somehow we convince ourselves that the summer break from routines is a legitimate and well deserved rest.

I can buy that argument for a week or two of vacation, but for eight to 10 weeks, a break from a routine is really just the establishment of another routine, one which is not in the best interests of our children in the longer term.

Kids need to eat properly and sleep consistently, not just for the purpose of staying awake in classes when school begins, but because these two processes drive a lot of the biological needs of a fit and healthy body and mind.

Surely, we’re not going to suggest that our children only need healthy routines on the less than half a year’s complement of school days,

But for many young people, that is exactly the case.

On Friday and Saturday nights every weekend, sleep routines are dramatically altered.

In many homes, consistent eating patterns with balanced and nutritional meals are more the exception than the rule.

The summer is not so much a break in the routine as it is the stretching of the weekend routines into seven days of the week.

Frankly, since many young people like the lack of routine that such circumstances create, it makes them resentful of the structure that school imposes on what turns out to be their most common routine, or non-routine.

It has been my experience that students who have summer jobs that get them up at a regular time, or student athletes that have regular workouts that get them up and going have little difficulty adjusting to the changes as classes begin. As well, those families that continue to share regular and balanced meals through the summer tend to have children who are more alert and generally healthier as the inevitable back-to-school exchange of germs takes place.

Without going into a lot of science, let me simply comment that the human body is constantly trying to reach a point of balance, in scientific terms, homeostasis. When the right nutrients are provided and the right exercise and rest routines are established, the body tends to run smoothly, a little like a car that is properly serviced. Failure to provide appropriate “fuel,” or constant stress on the body through changing routines, causes various systems to get out of whack. What that means in terms of each individual depends on a huge number of variables but it’s generally a risk of some letdown of the immune system or the thinking and decision-making process.

I don’t have a problem with a day of rest and broken routines each week – consider it a visit to the shop for servicing – but I do think that when routines become the exception, you have a potential problem. I am not suggesting that I know there is a relationship, but I have noticed that asthma rates, allergy rates and hyperactivity rates, just to mention a few, have taken off in the last 10 years.

Perhaps it is something in the air or chemical additives in the food, but perhaps it is an indication of the body’s natural response to constant stress. What I can tell you is that without proper eating habits and sleeping habits for youngsters, issues may continue to arise for which we’ll seek complex interventions (medical responses) and for which simple routines could have had a significant impact.

Graham Hookey is an educator and writer (ghookey@yahoo.com).