Brain-based parenting

We all know sleep is important for mental health. Anyone with children has probably experienced some degree of sleep deprivation, whether it’s from sweaty toddlers climbing into your bed and performing an Olympic-level floor routine in their sleep, or just the mental-load cycling through your thoughts all night. But sleep is also vital for your children’s mental health, learning and emotional regulation. Today I am covering a paper from the University of Cambridge and the lab of Professor Duncan Astle (an excellent researcher, who also happened to be my PhD examiner!)

What does the research say?

27% of children, and 42% of teens report inadequate sleep that effects their day to day lives. Children with neurodevelopmental disorders (like ADHD and autism) are more likely to experience problems with sleep (whether that is going to bed, sleeping well enough, waking easily or feeling sleepy in the day).

Here’s the problem- bad sleep can cause lots of the symptoms of neurodevelopmental disorders (like difficulty paying attention, learning difficulties, emotion dysregulation) but neurodevelopmental disorders might increase the likelihood of poor sleep.

This study looked at 299 children aged 5-18, with a mix of symptoms, some diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders (like ADHD, autism, dyslexia), some not. They took a data-driven approach, using some clever statistical approaches that uncovered patterns in the data that were not biased by any pre-existing hypotheses.

Parents rated their children’s behaviour, mental health, communication and sleep (going to sleep, sleep duration and sleepiness on waking). The children did cognitive tests to measure spelling, reading, maths and general intelligence.

What did they find?

They found two “types” of sleepers in the group of children (you might have one of each, like me!) Regular sleepers (kids that got adequate sleep) and poor sleepers (kids with problems falling asleep and/or waking up tired).

• Poor sleepers had worse emotion regulation (more emotional instability and difficulty managing emotions); problems forming and maintaining relationships and difficulties with language skills and across all domains of reading, maths and spelling.

• Sleep quality was directly linked to multiple symptoms, including aggression, inattention, hyperactivity/impulsivity and executive functioning. Sleep had the strongest direct relationship with emotion, likely the basis between sleep and mental health.

• The poor sleepers group had more children with diagnosed ADHD, autism and learning difficulties (confirming what we already knew about sleep problems in these children) but some diagnosed children were also regular sleepers (so just having a neurodevelopmental disorder is a risk factor, not a guarantee of bad sleep)

• Some caveats: much of the data was parent-reported (ie it might be biased, but then again, it did correlate highly with in-lab testing) and sleep wasn’t objectively measured (also reported via questionnaires).

What does this mean for my parenting?

💤 Sleep is very important. You might know that I am not someone to scare-monger over screens, but as much as possible, prevent screens from reducing sleep quantity and quality. Try to establish screen-free bed times (for everyone in the family). In my family, we have one movie night a week, but it ends at the time they would normally go to sleep.

🛌 Prioritise sleep and track sleep needs. Especially as children get into pre-teen and teen years, encourage them to take note of how much sleep they need to feel good the next day. The summer holidays are an excellent time for this. Then they can learn for themselves how important sleep is for their needs.

😭 Be aware of the relationship between sleep and emotion. Teach children strategies to manage their feelings when they are sleep deprived (also try to have more patience when emotions are high due to sleep problems)

🧠 If you, or your school, notices delays in speech or language, try to seek help as early as possible. Early interventions can minimise later impacts.

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