Children need many things to help them to be successful at school. There are four things that are fairly easy to make sure success happens. These four things are: Sleep, Attendance, food, and exercise.

SLEEP: Children ages 2 to 4 need 10 to 12 hours of sleep each night with a 1 to 2 hour nap each day. Children ages 5 to 12 need 9 to 10 hours of sleep each night with infreguent naps. Teenagers (13 to 19) need 9.5 hours of sleep each night.

ATTENDANCE: Research has shown that attendance is the single most important factor in a child being successful in school. If a child is late every day by 15 minutes, that child misses 45 hours of instruction or 7 1/2 school days in a year. If a child is only late 10 minutes each school day they miss 5 days of instruction in a year.

Remember to make school a priority talk with your child about the importance of getting to school on time.

FOOD: Children need nutrious food to function well in school. A balanced diet helps children to grow, learn, have energy and to build strong bones and muscles. Children need to eat whole grains, fruit, vegetables, dairy products, and poultry, fish, dry beans, meat, nuts and/or eggs. Candy, cakes, cookies, fried foods potato chips, should be for special occasions only.

EXERCISE: Children need physical activity everyday. Experts suggest that children should be physically active at least 60 minutes a day. If children are physically active a parent (as will as the school) should discover that child has less discipline problems.

The right amount of sleep, daily attendance, healthy food and daily exercise will help a child to experience success at school and at home!