The High School Challenge

Re “Hard Lesson in Sleep for Teenagers” (Personal Health, Oct. 21):

What is a parent supposed to do when a child has to be up at 6:30 a.m. to get to school on time and doesn’t get home until 6 p.m. and then has hours of homework? You can take away all the electronics you want (but not really, as all homework is assigned and submitted online), but if there simply aren’t enough hours in the day and too much homework it becomes a far bigger issue than one individual family.Malka F. Margolies, posted to Facebook

Blaming electronics isn’t really fair. I was a teenager when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and I went under my blankets with a flashlight and read books, sometimes into the wee, small hours.Christy Wolfe, posted to Facebook

Start high school at 11 a.m. Not only will you address the sleep deprivation issue, you’ll cut back on undesirable activity after school as well. Going to school 11-5 gets kids home close to parents. I promise you, they won’t get up at 7 a.m. to go shoplift at the convenience store — but between 3 and 5 they’re looking for something to get up to.Nuna Bosler, posted to Facebook

Global Inequities

TO THE EDITOR:

Steroids are successfully administered to women in preterm labor here in the United States to effectively speed up their babies’ lung development and have saved the lives of many premature babies.