Day 22 (of 2026/27) a thought on ‘internal clocks’ inspired by an article by @arianaeunjung and the @washingtonpost
Another day and another ‘concern’ brought to me about how a kiddo’s internal clock is flipped and there is a hope that our school (a provincial online learning school) may be helpful for them to do work when nobody else is up…
.
…while they figure out how to make things ‘better’ for the kid…
.
I’ve known a lot of ‘night owls’.
I’ve had a lot of friends who have both thrived and struggled with ‘midnight shifts’.
Our culture has become more 24/7
Shopping – both online and inperson
.
I know that many see the night as scary, but…
There is a serenity at night
A sense of calm
A sense of purpose
And less ‘isolation’ than ever before.
Asynchronous communication means you don’t have to be awake at a certain time to catch content.
You can make friends in different time zones
.
And now there’s a fresh thought on this… connected with ADHD?
I know the headline is about adhd
But the title buries the lead
And links nicely with my recent dive into neurological differences in reading, writing, mathing… why not dive deeper:
.
- Maybe your brain is finally able to operate on its own clock and not the one dictated to you.
- The quiet can be cognitively valuable.
- Being a night owl may be a difference to accommodate rather than an issue to cure.
.
Maybe the question isn’t “Why is this kid awake at 2 a.m.?” but “What happens when we stop assuming 8 a.m. is the universal starting time for a human brain?”
.
As we do some thinking and rethinking about our systems… perhaps some behaviours we label as deficits are partly the result of demanding the same biological schedule from brains that don’t run on the same clock.
.
This definitely lines up with one of my recent rants about wondering if (and harder: how) our education system (in our province connected with childcare) ought to do a better job targeting learning families that have traditionally been ignored because they are not as privileged to have a 9-5 work schedule…
.
Should we be doing more for families… and learners… who are better served at nights and weekends (when their parents are more often working and there are less daycare services available).
.
Should we reconsider some thoughts about clocks… and times… and have a better flexibility for -ish times.
.
Can we end the hardwired narrative that ‘starting at a predetermined time is respect and being late (but not early?) is rude and disrespectful’ <— wow, those factory whistles and church bells, adhans, etc have generationally traumatized a lot of our current conditioning…
.
Oh, but that would be inconvenient and require a bit of a rethink of the ‘why’ we do what we do – not just the how and what… and for more than just ‘the average’ or ‘most’ learners.
.
I need to do a deeper dive into the ‘mental health’ conditions that are connected here and see if they are linked to ‘being a night owl’ or to night owls having to fit into world that had not had enough accommodations
.
Glad our school (and our new online library) is available for students to use when the desire to learn strikes… not necessarily when schedules-that-are-convenient-for-middle-class say they should…
.
Or is the circadian rhythm so necessary we continue to force all humanity into the same schedule (except for work… parenting ‘sleep’ schedules,
.
Interesting addition so some of my side-thinking about “time” (more to come!)
Leave a Reply