East Meets West: Adopted Chinese Girls' Nighttime Sleep Problems and Adoptive Parents' Self-Judgment About Parenting

Behav Sleep Med. 2017 May-Jun;15(3):242-255. doi: 10.1080/15402002.2015.1120204. Epub 2016 Jan 20.

Abstract

We investigated the association between adopted Chinese girls' nighttime sleep problems and adoptive parents' self-judgment about their parenting. The girls were 1.7-6.9 years old (M = 4.6 years, SD = 1.0) and were adopted at 7-56 months (M = 13.9 months, SD = 6.6) by families in North America. At Wave 2 of a longitudinal study on adopted Chinese children's development, the adoptive parents provided survey data on bedtime resistance or anxiety and parasomnias in their daughters and their own parental sense of entitlement and parenting competence. Results showed that controlling for child and family demographics, parasomnias, but not bedtime resistance or anxiety, negatively predicted parental sense of entitlement (B = -.13, p < .01) and parenting competence (B = -.14, p < .01).

MeSH terms

  • Anxiety / complications
  • Asian People / psychology*
  • Child
  • Child Development
  • Child, Preschool
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Infant
  • Judgment*
  • Longitudinal Studies
  • Male
  • North America
  • Parasomnias / complications
  • Parasomnias / psychology*
  • Parent-Child Relations / ethnology*
  • Parenting / ethnology*
  • Parenting / psychology*
  • Parents / psychology*
  • Surveys and Questionnaires