Early Parental Positive Personality and Adversity: Associations with Children’s Sleep

• In Event: 3-084 - The Influence of Parental Risk Factors and Extrafamilial Stressors on Sleep from Infancy to Emerging Adulthood

Integrative Statement

Early life experiences can impact development, physical health, and mental health across the lifespan. Early adverse experiences (e.g., neglect, violence) have been associated with a number of physiological and mental health problems later in life (Shonkoff et al., 2012). Whereas, early positive experiences that are promotive or protective (e.g., strong family relationships, community engagement) have been associated with healthy development (Youngblade et al., 2007). One mechanism whereby early life experiences may impact child health is sleep, which has been linked to a range of health outcomes (El-Sheikh et al., 2013). The current study examined the influence of early parent-related adversity and positive parent personality during infancy on sleep in middle childhood. Further, the role of positive parent personality as a buffer of the association between adversity and sleep was considered.

Participants included 381 twins and their primary caregivers from an ongoing, longitudinal twin study. Families were recruited from birth records and caregivers completed survey assessments via phone when children were 12 and 30 months of age to assess multiple dimensions of adversity and positive parent personality. Six years later, when children were eight-years of age (50% female, 56.4% non-Hispanic White, 30% Hispanic), they participated in an intensive assessment that included wearing actigraph watches for seven consecutive nights to provide an objective measurement of sleep, while caregivers completed daily diaries regarding twins’ sleep. Composite scores of adversity included parenting daily hassles, lack of social support and emotional availability, caregiver depression, punitive punishment, and chaos; the first principal component explained 37.71% of the variance (scale loadings .46-.71). Composite scores of positive parent personality included optimism, hope, empathy, self-compassion, personal mastery, and positive expressiveness in the home; the first principal component explained 54.55% of the variance (scale loadings .50-.91).

We simultaneously estimated the effects of early adversity, positive parent personality, and the interaction between the two, along with covariates on five sleep parameters in a multilevel model. Sleep duration, latency, midpoint of the sleep period, variability in duration, and caregiver-reported subjective quality/daytime functioning were chosen based on correlations with the early life composites. Positive parent personality was associated prospectively with longer sleep durations (b = 0.15, p = .008), shorter sleep latencies at a trend level (b = -0.12, p = .07), and higher sleep quality/daytime functioning (b = 0.16, p = .004). Adversity was associated prospectively with greater variability in sleep duration (b = 0.06, p = .02). Positive parent personality moderated the adversity—sleep-timing relation (b = -0.10, p = .06), such that the association between greater adversity and a later midpoint of the sleep period was only significant for children with parents with low positive personality (e.g., low optimism; Paper 1, Figure 1).

Authors

• Samantha A Miadich, Arizona State University
  Presenting Author

• Leah D. Doane, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mary C. Davis, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kathryn Lemery-Chalfant, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author