Parental relationship dissolution and child development: the role of child sleep quality

Abstract

We utilized the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing longitudinal dataset to evaluate associations among a maternal relationship dissolution, childhood sleep, and child development, specifically externalizing and internalizing symptoms, attention and social difficulties, as well as cognitive ability, when children were ages 5 (n = 3590) and 9 (n = 3062). A maternal relationship dissolution was related to poorer child sleep quality at ages 5 and 9. There was evidence of an indirect relation from a maternal relationship dissolution to child development through poor sleep quality when the child was 5 and 9 years old. The implications of this work are discussed.