Good Question: Why Do Kids Have So Much Energy?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- As Minnesota children come up on spring break, there will be lot of parents trying to figure out how to keep all their little Energizer bunnies busy.
So, why do kids have so much energy?
The reasons are likely two-fold, says Dr. Gigi Chawla, a pediatrician at Children's Minnesota.
"One is that it's evolutionary. Children are designed to really be learning. Their brains are growing, they're really exploring everything and that is their play, that is their activity," Chawla said.
Children need the energy to help develop their brains.
"Movement is what help us learn," said Ross Thompson, a teaching specialist at the University of Minnesota's Institute of Child Development. "Energy is what fuels their learning."
A second reason is that children generally get more sleep than adults. According to the National Sleep Foundation, children under 5 average 10 to 12 hours of sleep per day.
Kids also don't have all of the pressures and responsibilities of an adult.
"They go into each moment living in that moment, exploring everything about," Chawla said. "They're not backpacking all the things that we adults are thinking about and have processed through the day."
Experts say there is a good part to having less energy as an adult: you don't take as many risks, which makes parents slower, wiser and better equipped to handle kids.
