Sleep in Children Links with Marital Conflict and Child Development

Sleep and Development: Familial and Socio-Cultural Considerations

Volumn , Issue , 2011, Pages

  El Sheikh, Mona ^a,b   Kelly, Ryan J ^b  

^a Leonard Peterson and Co Inc   (United States)

^b AUBURN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Child development; Children's sleep; Family functioning; Marital conflict; Sleeping problems

Indexed keywords

EID: 84921028910     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195395754.003.0001     Document Type: Chapter

References (92)

1. Archbold, K. H., Giordani, B., Ruzicka, D. L., & Chervin, R. D. (2004). Cognitive executive dysfunction in children with mild sleep-disordered breathing. Biological Research for Nursing, 5, 168-176.
2. Aronen, E. T., Paavonen, E. J., Fjallberg, M., Soininen, M., & Torronen, J. (2000). Sleep and psychiatric symptoms in school-age children. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 39, 502-508.
3. Bogels, S. M., & Brechman-Toussaint, M. L. (2006). Family issues in child anxiety: Attachment, family functioning, parental rearing and beliefs. Clinical Psychology Review, 26, 834-856.
4. Buckhalt, J. A., El-Sheikh, M., & Keller, P. (2007). Children's sleep and cognitive functioning: Race and socioeconomic status as moderators of effects. Child Development, 78, 213-231.
5. Buckhalt, J. A., El-Sheikh, M., Keller, P. S., & Kelly, R. J. (2009). Concurrent and longitudinal relationships between children's sleep and cognitive functioning: The moderating role of parent education. Child Development, 80, 875-892.
6. Carskadon, M. A. (2002). Factors influencing sleep patterns of adolescents. In M. A. Carskadon (Ed.), Adolescent sleep patterns: Biological, social, and psychological influences (pp. 4-26). New York: Cambridge University Press.
7. Carter-Pokras, O., & Baquet, C. (2002). What is a "health disparity"? Public Health Reports, 117, 426-434.
8. Crockenberg, S., & Langrock, A. (2001). The role of specific emotions in children's responses to interparental conflict: A test of the model. Journal of Family Psychology, 15, 163-182.
9. Cummings, E. M., & Cummings, J. L. (1988). A process-oriented approach to children's coping with adults' angry behavior. Developmental Review, 8, 296-321.
10. Cummings, E. M., & Davies, P. (1996). Emotional security as a regulatory process in normal development and the development of psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 8, 123-139.
11. Cummings, E. M., & Davies, P. T. (2002). Effects of marital conflict on children: Recent advances and emerging themes in process-oriented research. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 43, 31-63.
12. Cummings, E. M., & Davies, P. T. (2010). Marital conflict and children: An emotional security perspective. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
13. Dahl, R. E. (1996). The regulation of sleep and arousal: Development and psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 8, 3-27.
14. Dahl, R. E., & Lewin, D. S. (2002). Pathways to adolescent health sleep regulation and behavior. Journal of Adolescent Health, 31, 175-184.
15. Dahl, R. E., Ryan, N. D., Matty, M. K., Birmaher, B., Al-Shabbout, M., Williamson, D. E., & Kupfer, D. J. (1996). Sleep onset abnormalities in depressed adolescents. Biological Psychiatry, 39, 400-410.
16. Davies, P. T., & Cummings, E. M. (1994). Marital conflict and child adjustment: An emotional security hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin, 116, 387-411.
17. Davies, P. T., & Lindsay, L. L. (2001). Does gender moderate the effects of marital conflict on children? In J. Grych & F. Fincham (Eds.), Child development and interparental conflict (pp. 64-97). New York: Cambridge University Press.
18. Davies, P. T., & Lindsay, L. L. (2004). Interparental conflict and adolescent adjustment: Why does gender moderate early adolescent vulnerability? Journal of Family Psychology, 18, 160-170.
19. Durand, V. N., & Mindell, J. A. (1990). Behavioral treatment of multiple childhood sleep disorders. Behavior Modification, 14, 37-49.
20. Du Rocher Schudlich, T. D., Shamir, H., & Cummings, E. M. (2004). Marital conflict, children's representations of family relationships, and children's dispositions towards peer conflict strategies. Social Development, 13, 171-192.
21. El-Sheikh, M. (2005). The role of emotional responses and physiological reactivity in the marital conflict-child functioning link. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 46, 1191-1199.
22. El-Sheikh, M. (2007). [Sleep problems as potential moderators of effects in the associations between parental marital conflict and children's adjustment]. Unpublished raw data.
23. El-Sheikh, M., & Buckhalt, J. (2005). Vagal regulation and emotional intensity predict children's sleep problems. Developmental Psychobiology, 46, 307-317.
24. El-Sheikh, M., Buckhalt, J. A., Cummings, E. M., & Keller, P. (2007). Sleep disruptions and emotional insecurity are pathways of risk for children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 48, 88-96.
25. El-Sheikh, M., Buckhalt, J. A., Keller, P. S., Cummings, E. M., & Acebo, C. (2007). Child emotional insecurity and academic achievement: The role of sleep disruptions. Journal of Family Psychology, 21, 29-38.
26. El-Sheikh, M., Buckhalt, J. A., Mize, J., & Acebo, C. (2006). Marital conflict and disruption of children's sleep. Child Development, 77, 31-43.
27. El-Sheikh, M., & Cummings, E. M. (1992). Availability of control and preschoolers' responses to interadult anger. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 15, 207-226.
28. El-Sheikh, M., Cummings, E. M., Kouros, C. D., Elmore-Staton, L., & Buckhalt, J. A. (2008). Marital psychological and physical aggression and children's mental and physical health: Direct, mediated, and moderated effects. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 76, 138-148.
29. El-Sheikh, M., Erath, S. A., & Keller, P. S. (2007). Children's sleep and adjustment: The moderating role of vagal regulation. Journal of Sleep Research, 16, 396-405.
30. El-Sheikh, M., Harger, J., & Whitson, S. M. (2001). Exposure to interparental conflict and children's adjustment and physical health: The moderating role of vagal tone. Child Development, 72, 1617-1636.
31. El-Sheikh, M., Kelly, R. J., Buckhalt, J. A., & Hinnant, J. B. (2010). Children's sleep and adjustment over time: The role of socioeconomic context. Child Development, 81, 870-883.
32. El-Sheikh, M., Kouros, C. D., Erath, S., Keller, P., Cummings, E. M., & Staton, L (2009). Marital conflict and children's externalizing behavior: Interactions between parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system activity. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 74 (1, Serial No. 292).
33. El-Sheikh, M., & Whitson, S. A. (2006). Longitudinal relations between marital conflict and child adjustment: Vagal regulation as a protective factor. Journal of Family Psychology, 20, 30-39.
34. Fallone, G., Acebo, C., Seifer, R., & Carskadon, M. A. (2005). Experimental restriction of sleep opportunity in children: Effects on teacher ratings. Sleep, 28, 1561-1567.
35. Fosco, G. M., & Grych, J. H. (2008). Emotional, cognitive, and family systems mediators of children's adjustment to interparental conflict. Journal of Family Psychology, 22, 843-854.
36. Fredriksen, K., Rhodes, J., Reddy, R., & Way, N. (2004). Sleepless in Chicago: Tracking the effects of adolescent sleep loss during the middle school years. Child Development, 75, 84-95.
37. Gianaros, P. J., Van Der Veen, F. M., & Jennings, R. (2004). Regional cerebral blood flow correlates with heart period and high-frequency heart period variability during working-memory tasks: Implications for the cortical and subcortical regulation of cardiac autonomic activity. Psychophysiology, 41, 521-530.
38. Goeke-Morey, M. C., Cummings, E. M., Harold, G. T., & Shelton, K. H. (2003). Categories and continua of destructive and constructive marital conflict tactics from the perspective of U.S. and Welsh children. Journal of Family Psychology, 17, 327-338.
39. Goetz, S. E., Shin, N., Kryzysik, L., Wingo, B. N., & Vaughn, B. E. (2009, April). Social benefits of a good night's sleep for preschool-age children. Poster presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Denver, CO.
40. Gregory, A. M., Caspi, A., Eley, T. C., Moffitt, T. E., O'Conner, T. G., & Poulton, R. (2005). Prospective longitudinal associations between persistent sleep problems in childhood and anxiety and depression disorders in adulthood. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 33, 157-163.
41. Gregory, A. M., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., & Poulton, R. (2006). Family conflict in childhood: A predictor of later insomnia. Sleep, 29, 1063-1067.
42. Gregory, A. M., Willis, T. A., Wiggs, L., Harvey, A. G., & the STEPS team. (2008). Presleep arousal and sleep disturbances in children. Sleep, 31, 1745-1747.
43. Grych, J. H., & Fincham, F. D. (1990). Marital conflict and children's adjustment: A cognitive-contextual framework. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 267-290.
44. Grych, J. H., Fincham, F. D., Jouriles, E. N., & McDonald, R. (2000). Interparental conflict and child adjustment: Testing the mediational role of appraisals in the cognitive-contextual framework. Child Development, 71, 1648-1661.
45. Hall, W. A., Zubrick, S. R., Silburn, S. R., Parsons, D. E., & Kurinczuk, J. J. (2007). A model for predicting behavioural sleep problems in a random sample of Australian pre-schoolers. Infant and Child Development, 16, 509-523.
46. Harold, G. T., Aitken, J. J., & Shelton, K. H. (2007). Inter-parental conflict and children's academic attainment: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Child Psychology, and Psychiatry, 48, 1223-1232.
47. Holmbeck, G. N. (1997). Toward terminological, conceptual, and statistical clarity in the study of mediators and moderators: Examples from the child-clinical and pediatric psychology literatures. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 65, 599-610.
48. Humphreys, J., & Lee, K. (2005). Sleep disturbance in battered women living in transitional housing. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 26, 771-780.
49. Irwin, M. (2008). Human psychoneuroimmunology: twenty years of discovery. Brain, Behavior and Immunity, 22, 129-139.
50. Jaffee, P. G., Wolfe, D. A., & Wilson, S. K. (1990). Children of battered women. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
51. Jouriles, E. N., Norwood, W. D., & McDonald, R. (1996). Physical violence and other forms of marital aggression: Links with children's behavior problems. Journal of Family Psychology, 10, 223-234.
52. Kahn, A., Van de Merckt, C., Rebuffat, E., Mozin, M. J., Sottiaux, M., Blum, D., & Hennart, P. (1989). Sleep problems in healthy preadolescents. Pediatrics, 84, 542-546.
53. Katz, L. F., & Low, S. M. (2004). Marital violence, co-parenting, and family-level processes in relation to children's adjustment. Journal of Family Psychology, 18, 372-382.
54. Keller, P. S., El-Sheikh, M., & Buckhalt, J. A. (2008). Children's attachment to parents and their academic functioning: Sleep disruptions as moderators of effects. Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 29, 441-449.
55. Kelly, R. J., & El-Sheikh, M. (2009, April). Children's appraisals of marital conflict and their sleep disruptions. Poster presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Denver, CO.
56. Kelly, R. J., Keller, P., Staton, L., Reinecke, D., Buckhalt, J. A., & El-Sheikh, M. (2008, March). Children's sleep as a predictor of marital conflict: A longitudinal study. Poster presented at the Pediatric Sleep Medicine Conference, Amelia Island, FL.
57. Koenen, K. C., Moffitt, T. E., Caspi, A., Taylor, A., & Purcell, S. (2003). Domestic violence is associated with environmental suppression of IQ in young children. Development and Psychopathology, 15, 297-311.
58. Layzer, J. I., Goodson, B. D., & Delange, C. (1986). Children in shelters. Response to the Victimization of Women and Children, 9, 2-5.
59. Leotta, C., Carskadon, M. A., Acebo, C., Seifer, R., & Quinn, B. (1997). Effects of acute sleep restriction on affective response in adolescents: Preliminary results. Sleep Research, 26, 201.
60. Lindsey, E. W., MacKinnon-Lewis, C., Campbell, J., Frabutt, J. M., & Lamb, M. E. (2002). Marital conflict and boys' peer relationships: The mediating role of mother-son emotional reciprocity. Journal of Family Psychology, 16, 466-477.
61. Lumeng, J. C., Somashekar, D., Appugliese, D., Kaciroti, N., Corwyn, R. F., & Bradley, R. H. (2007). Shorter sleep duration is associated with increased risk for being overweight at ages 9 to 12 years. Pediatrics, 120, 1020-1029.
62. MacKinnon, D. P. (2008). Introduction to statistical mediation analyses (pp. 1-22). New York, NY: Lawrence Erlbaum.
63. MacKinnon, D. P., Lockwood, C. M., Hoffman, J. M., West, S. G., & Sheets, V. (2002). A comparison of methods to test mediation and other intervening variable effects. Psychological Methods, 7, 83-104.
64. Marks, C. R., Glaser, B. A., Glass, J. B., & Horne, A. M. (2001). Effects of witnessing severe marital discord on children's social competence and behavioral problems. The Family Journal, 9, 94-101.
65. McDonald, R., & Grych, J. H. (2006). Young children's appraisals of interparental conflict: Measurement and links with adjustment problems. Journal of Family Psychology, 20, 88-99.
66. Meijer, A. M., Habekothe, H. T., & van den Wittenboer, G. L. H. (2000). Time in bed, quality of sleep and school functioning of children. Journal of Sleep Research, 9, 145-153.
67. Meltzer, L. J., & Mindell, J. A. (2007). Relationship between child sleep disturbances and maternal sleep, mood, and parenting stress: A pilot study. Journal of Family Psychology, 21, 67-73.
68. Mindell, J. A., & Durand, V. M. (1993). Treatment of childhood sleep disorders: Generalization across disorders and effects on family members. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 18, 731-750.
69. Muller, D., Judd, C. M., & Yzerbyt, V. Y. (2005). When moderation is mediated and mediation is moderated. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 852-863.
70. National Institutes of Health. (2003). Research on children exposed to violence. Research program announcement PAR-03-096. Retrieved from
71. National Institutes of Health. (2006). NIH strategic plan to reduce and ultimately eliminate health disparities. Retrieved from
72. Otis, A. S., & Lennon, R. T. (2003). The Otis-Lennon School Ability Test (8th ed.). San Antonio, TX: Harcourt.
73. Pendry, P., & Adam, E. K. (2003, April). Hush-a-bye hormones: Parent behavior, parent emotional and marital functioning, and child cortisol. Poster presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Tampa, FL.
74. Perry, B. D. (1997). Incubated in terror: Neurodevelopmental factors in the "cycle of violence." In J. D. Osofsky (Ed.), Children in a violent society (pp. 124-149). New York: Guilford.
75. Sadeh, A. (2008). Commentary: Comparing actigraphy and parental report as measures of children's sleep. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 33, 406-407.
76. Sadeh, A., Gruber, R., & Raviv, A. (2002). Sleep, neurobehavioral functioning, and behavior problems in school-age children. Child Development, 73, 405-417.
77. Sadeh, A., Raviv, A., & Gruber, R. (2000). Sleep patterns and sleep disruptions in school-age children. Developmental Psychology, 36, 291-301.
78. Saltzman, K. M., Holden, G. W., & Holahan, C. J. (2005). The psychobiology of children exposed to marital violence. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 34, 129-139.
79. Shelton, K. H., & Harold, G. T. (2007). Marital conflict and children's adjustment: The mediating and moderating role of children's coping strategies. Social Development, 16, 497-512.
80. Shelton, K. H., Harold, G. T., Goeke-Morey, M. C., & Cummings, E. M. (2006). Children's coping with marital conflict: The role of conflict expression and gender. Social Development, 15, 232-247.
81. Smith Slep, A. M., & O'Leary, S. G. (2005). Parent and partner violence in families with young children: Rates, patterns, and connections. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73, 435-444.
82. Snell, E. K., Adam, E. K., & Duncan, G. J. (2007). Sleep and the body mass index and overweight status of children and adolescents. Child Development, 78, 309-323.
83. Spilsbury, J, C. (2009). Sleep as a mediator in the pathway from violence-induced traumatic stress to poorer health and functioning: A review of the literature and proposed conceptual model. Behavioral Sleep Medicine, 7, 223-244.
84. Stanford Achievement Test Series, 10th Edition. (2005). San Antonio, TX: Harcourt.
85. Steenari, M. R., Vuontela, V., Paavonen, E. J., Carlson, S., Fjallberg, M., & Aronen, E. T. (2003). Working memory and sleep in 6-to 13-year-old school children. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 42, 85-92.
86. Steinberg, L., & Avenevoli, S. (2000). The role of context in the development of psychopathology: A conceptual framework and some speculative propositions. Child Development, 71, 66-74.
87. Straus, M. A., & Gelles, R. J. (1990). How violent are American families? Estimates from the national family violence resurvey and other studies. In M. A. Straus & R. J. Gelles (Eds.), Physical violence in American families: Risk factors and adaptations to violence in 8,145 families (pp. 95-112). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
88. Sturge-Apple, M. L., Davies, P. T., Winter, M. A., Cummings, E. M., & Schermerhorn, A. (2008). Interparental conflict and children's school adjustment: The explanatory role of children's internal representations of interparental and parent-child relationships. Developmental Psychology, 44, 1678-1690.
89. Troxel, W. M., Robles, T. F., Hall, M., & Buysse, D. J. (2007). Marital quality and the marital bed: Examining the covariation between relationship quality and sleep. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 11, 389-404.
90. Van Tassel, E. B. (1985). The relative influence of child and environmental characteristics on sleep disturbances in the first and second years of life. Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 6, 81-85.
91. Whitson, S., & El-Sheikh, M. (2003). Marital conflict and health: Processes and protective factors. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 8, 283-312.
92. Ybarra, G. J., Wilkens, S. L., & Lieberman, A. F. (2007). The influence of domestic violence on preschooler behavior and functioning. Journal of Family Violence, 22, 33-42.