Parenting styles and children’s sleep quality: Examining the mediating roles of mindfulness and loneliness

Abstract

BackgroundSleep quality plays a crucial role in children’s physical and mental health. Prior research has documented that parenting styles are closely associated with children’s sleep quality. However, the psychological processes underlying this relationship are less investigated. ObjectiveBased on parental acceptance-rejection theory and the psychobiological inhibition model of insomnia, the current study aimed to examine the mediating roles of mindfulness and loneliness in the associations between parenting styles (i.e., parental warmth and parental rejection) and children’s sleep quality. MethodsA questionnaire survey regarding parenting styles, mindfulness, loneliness, and sleep quality was administered to 475 Chinese children (Mage = 10.68 years, SDage = 1.15). ResultsParental warmth was negatively associated with poor sleep quality, and parental rejection was positively associated with poor sleep quality. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis indicated that (a) loneliness, but not mindfulness, mediated the association between parental warmth and children’s sleep quality, and (b) mindfulness and loneliness exerted both unique and sequential mediating effects on the association between parental rejection and children’s sleep quality. ConclusionThese findings shed light on possible mechanisms that can account for the associations between parenting styles and children’s sleep quality, and have implications for intervention strategies aimed at improving children’s sleep quality.