By Laura Clark, Education Correspondent
Parents are being urged to ban tablet computers at bedtime because 'addiction' to the gadgets is causing children to fall behind at school.
Teachers are warning that growing numbers of pupils turn up for lessons exhausted and irritable because they spend hours on tablets at home - often late into the night.
They say pupils are increasingly showing symptoms of 'tablet addiction' - deceptive and furtive behaviour, a loss of interest in other activities, and a lack of control over their actions.
Members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers will highlight the problem at their annual conference in Manchester next week and call on the union to produce guidance for staff on dealing with affected pupils.
Speaking at a pre-conference briefing, ATL's general secretary, Dr Mary Bousted urged parents to consider removing the devices at bedtime.
She said youngsters are mainly using them to play computer games and log into social media.
She said tablets were worse than televisions in bedrooms because they were smaller and more easily concealed.
'I have talked with parents about how difficult it is to manage because they are smaller. You say 'turn your tablet off now, go to bed' and two hours later you go up and under the duvet they are still playing the computer game,' she said.
'They are so easy to use and you can stick your earphones so nobody knows.
'You can be playing on your computer game or on Facebook or whatever social media network you're on for four or five hours rather than actually sleeping which does leave you coming into school withdrawn.
'My view the only way you can do it is to take the things off them when they go to bed.
'That may cause a world war breakdown in the family but my view is that if the child can't be trusted to turn it off when asked to then you just have to take it off them.'
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The motion to be debated at the ATL conference lists seven symptoms of addiction to tablets - withdrawal, loss of interest or 'crowding out' other activities, lack of control, irritability, deception and furtiveness, poor performance and losing educational opportunities.
Dr Bousted said members were concerned that too much screen time was leading to 'sedentary' lives and 'isolated children'.
'I don't think anybody in the debate is going to say let's go back to the 20th century and not have them. It's about how they are managed and how they are used.
'There's a strong need for parents to monitor what their children are doing, what they are viewing and who they are interacting with when they are on their tablets and computers.'
The warning follows research from Ofcom last year which found children's access to tablets at home has more than doubled from 20 per cent in 2012 to 51 per cent.
It has also been claimed that the boom in tablet ownership has led to children as young as four are being treated for 'iPad addiction'.
One girl of four reportedly became so obsessed with playing games on a tablet she was enrolled in therapy by her parents who wanted her treated for compulsive behaviour.
The pre-school child, from the south east of England, became hooked on a tablet at the age of three and was using it for up to four hours a day, becoming 'inconsolable' when it was taken away.
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