AIMS:
To explore
associations between children's sleep problems, and behavioural difficulties
and parenting approaches.
BACKGROUND:
Children
commonly have problematic night waking; however, relationships between
parenting cognitions and behaviours and children's sleep problems are rarely
examined.
DESIGN:
Longitudinal
children's cohort study from 5-29 months post birth.
METHODS:
Data were
taken from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (1998-2007) at
three phases: 5, 17 and 29 months of age. Thousand four hundred and
eighty-seven families were included in our study based on: participation from
phase 1 (5-months old), both parents' reports on parenting
cognitions/behaviours and child behavioural difficulties at 29 months, and
mothers' reports of children's sleep at 29 months. In 2013, we conducted
repeated measures anovas and manovas including children's gender.
RESULTS:
Extended
night-time waking patterns (wakes of ≥ 20 minutes) were associated with mothers'
and fathers' lower sense of parenting impact and higher over protectiveness and
mothers' lower self-efficacy and higher coerciveness for 29-month-old children.
In the extended waking group, mothers consistently reported lower
self-efficacy, higher over protectiveness and lower parenting impact at 5, 17
and 29 months. For those children, fathers were only more overprotective at 5
and 29 months. Regarding 29-month-old children's behaviour, children in the
extended night waking group had highest scores on externalizing and
internalizing behaviours. Girls had higher scores on shyness/inhibition and
boys had higher scores on aggression/hyperactivity.
CONCLUSION:
Mothers'
and fathers' parenting cognitions and behaviours are affected by 29-month-old
children's night waking patterns and night waking patterns are associated with
children's behavioural problems.
- 1Department of School Counseling and Special Education, Constantiner School of Education, Tel-Aviv University, Israel.
- 2Department of Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP), University of British Columbia (http://earlylearning.ubc.ca/), Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
- 3University of British Columbia School of Nursing, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
- J Adv Nurs. 2015 Jul;71(7):1639-49. doi: 10.1111/jan.12636. Epub 2015 Feb 18.
During 2011–2014 the percentage of children with serious emotional or behavioral difficulties was about twice as high among children living in poor families (<100% of the poverty threshold) compared with children living in the most affluent families (≥400% of the poverty threshold) (7.7% versus 3.8%). This pattern was found for both boys (9.9% versus 4.8% ) and girls (5.6% versus 2.8%). At each poverty status level a higher percentage of boys than girls had serious emotional or behavioral difficulties.
