Mar 03, 2014 12:16 PM EST By Jaleesa Baulkman, UniversityHerald Reporter

Many American children are not getting enough sleep, according to a recent poll, reported by The Plain Dealer.

The National Sleep Foundation found that children are not getting enough sleep as they should and reported that electronic devices are to blame. They also found that nearly three out of four American children sleep with an electronic device in her bedroom, the Plain Dealer reported.

"For children, a good night's sleep is essential to health, development and performance in school," Kristen L. Knutson from the University of Chicago said in a statement. "We found that when parents take action to protect their children's sleep, their children sleep better."

For the study, researchers surveyed more than 1,100 parents in the United States who had children between the ages of six and 17 living at home.

It is recommended that children aged 6 to 10 get between 10 and 11 hours of sleep each night, with older kids needing between 8.5 and 9.5 hours per night, Counsel and Heal reported.

Based on the survey, the six to 10 age group gets an average of 8.9 hours per night whereas the 15 to 17 age group gets 7.1 hours of sleep each school night.

The National Sleep Foundation found that around 72 percent of the children had at least one kind of electronic device in their bedrooms. It was also reported that children who had devices in their bedrooms slept an average of half an hour less in comparison to children without any devices in their bedrooms -studies have shown that even an extra half hour of sleep could help children perform better in school.

"If you look at these gadgets within an hour of bedtime, what happens is melatonin - the brain hormone that puts you to sleep- has been suppressed for the last hour," sleep expert  James Mass told Today.com. "Now, it's going to take you much longer to go to sleep."

Researchers said bedtime rules could help children get more sleep. They found that children of parents who enforced bedtime rules - for example, when to turn off smartphones and video games - slept an average of 1.1 hours more than children without rules. 

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