What if children affected by sleep disorder and aggression could regulate their emotions?

Abstract

The present study examined whether emotion regulation plays a mediating role in the relationship between aggressive behavior and sleep disorders in young children. Data were collected during pandemic via the Sleep Disturbance Scale for Children, the Aggression Tendency Scale and the Emotion Regulation Check List from 662 mothers with children aged 36–72 months. The data were tested with Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient and structural equation model analyses after the normality test. It was seen that there was a positive relationship between the aggressive behaviors of children and their sleep disorders. However, it was understood that both aggressive behaviors and sleep disorders of children had a negative and significant relationship with their emotion regulation skills. While children’s sleep disorders have an important predictive power in the emergence of aggressive behaviors, the mediating role of emotion regulation skills has eliminated the significance in this predictive power.