Generation Sleepless

An intimate glimpse inside a silent epidemic that is harming teens and how parents can help them reclaim the restorative power of sleep.

If you could protect your child from unnecessary anxiety, depression, and chronic stress, and foster a greater sense of happiness and well-being in their lives, wouldn’t you? In this book, the authors of the classic book on helping babies and young children develop healthy sleep habits The Happy Sleeper uncover one of the greatest threats to our teenagers’ physical and mental health: sleep deprivation. Caught in a perfect storm of omnipresent screens, academic overload, and unnecessarily early school start times, Generation Sleepless illustrates how our children are operating in a constant state of sleep debt while struggling to meet the demands of adolescence.

In this essential book, Heather Turgeon and Julie Wright draw on the latest scientific research to reveal that today’s teenagers are, in fact, the most sleep-deprived population in human history. In fact, at a critical phase of development, many teens need more sleep than their younger siblings—but they’re getting drastically less. Generation Sleepless guides families in building healthy habits around sleep by:

establishing family agreements around sleep habits

altering family practices around phones, social media, and screen time

regaining overall equilibrium in the home

remaking bedtime routines

Packed with years of research and in-depth reporting, Generation Sleepless is a wake-up call for parents and equips them with the right tools to start a family conversation about sleep and, ultimately, regain connection with their tweens and teens.

About the Author

Heather Turgeon, MFT, is a psychotherapist and author. Her work has appeared in The New York Times and The Washington Post, among other publications. Turgeon runs parenting groups and works with families in her clinical practice in Los Angeles. She has two (well-rested) elementary- and middle-school-age kids.

Julie Wright, MFT, is one of Los Angeles’s best-known parenting group leaders and has taught thousands of moms in her popular Wright Mommy and Me groups. She trained at Cedars-Sinai Early Childhood Center and cofounded a program for parents and babies from zero to three at the Los Angeles Child Guidance Clinic. Wright currently runs twenty parenting groups, with fourteen parents each, and has a long database of current and former group participants.

Author Residence: Los Angeles, CA