Relationship Between Bullying Behaviours And Sleep Quality In School-Aged Children

Abstract

Do children who practice bullying have more sleep disturbances than those who do not practice bullying? The research questions for this study were 1) Are there are differences in sleep quality between aggressors and non-aggressors and between victims and non-victims? 2)Do aggressors have higher SDI than non-aggressors? 3)What are the sleep characteristics in aggressors, non-aggressors, victims and non-victims? The purpose of the study was to analyse whether school-aged children who practice bullying have worse sleep quality than those who do not practice it and to identify the characteristics of dysfunctional sleep for aggressors? The research method was a cross-sectional study focusing on quantitative methodology. We analysed and compared the results of two questionnaires: bullying, aggressiveness among children with n= 1109, answered by the children and the Children’s Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ), with n= 883, answered by the parents. A convenience sample of 8 state and private schools in Portugal was worked upon. The SDI of aggressors is not significantly different from the SDI of non-aggressors. In the 33 CSHQ items, in seven the aggressors manifest significant differences: they go to bed at the same time less often, "fight" going to bed, sleep poorly, wet the bed more often, have a more agitated sleep, wake up with nightmares and are grumpier. There are no differences between the two groups, as both have high SDI. In the aggressors, the SDI is accentuated in relation to non-aggressors with regard to the following: more difficulty in going to bed at the same time, fight more at bedtime, sleep less, wet the bed, have more agitated sleep, wake up with nightmares more and wake up grumpy.

Keywords: ChildrenbullyingSleep Disturbance Index (SDI)

Introduction

We live in a society that is deprived of sleep, both among adults and among children and where aggressive behaviours in school contexts are quite expressive. A possible explanation for aggressive behaviour may be disturbed sleep characteristics.

Although sleep is a fundamental behavioural condition for the physiological maintenance of the body, sleep restriction is increasingly common in industrialized societies due to the extension of work throughout the 24 hours of the day. Recent studies indicate that the sleep duration of children has decreased in the last few decades about 30 to 60 minutes, and it is important to understand the characteristics and restrictive factors for children’s sleep, bringing in parental support behaviours to this understanding (Pyper, Harrington, & Manson, 2017).

Sleep changes during the life cycle. The characteristics of a new-born’s sleep are not the same as a school-aged child or an adolescent or adult. In a person without sleep disturbances, non-REM sleep and REM sleep cyclically alternate through the night. Each can occur every 70 to 110 minutes, in a process of 4 to 6 cycles per night. The way in which each sleep phase is distributed during the night may change with age, circadian rhythm, temperature, drug intake, or disease (Hirshkowitz, Whiton, Steven, Alessi, Oliviero, DonCarlos, Hazen, Herman, Eliot & Katz, 2015).

Adequate sleep duration for healthy individuals who do not suffer from any sleep disturbance varies greatly at the level of the developmental cycle; for new-borns, the adequate sleep duration is between 14 and 17 hours, for small children it is between 12 and 15 hours, for preschool age children it is between 10 and 13 hours and for school age children it is between 9 and 11 hours. For adolescents, the adequate sleep duration ranges from 8 to 10 hours and is considered appropriate. For adults and young adults, it is between 7 and 9 hours and for older adults it is 7 to 8 hours (Hirshkowitz, et al., 2015). Thus, sufficient sleep duration requirements vary throughout the life span and from person to person (Hirshkowitz et al., 2015). Individuals who normally sleep out of the normal pattern may exhibit signs or symptoms of health problems and this may compromise their well-being (Hirshkowitz et al., 2015). Other authors consider that school- aged children (6 to 12 years old) should sleep 10 to 12 hours per night, but studies show that they sleep on average 9.5 hours and that one third develops sleep problems (Mindell, Meltzerb, Carskadonc, & Chervind, 2009).

Sleep problems during childhood and adolescence are frequent and sometimes they are not transient. Some studies report that sleep problems do not disappear or diminish at all with advancing age, and can become chronic. It is very worrying that many parents still underestimate their children's sleep problems and the seriousness of their consequences (Cheung, Bedford, Urabain, Karmiloff-Smith, & Smith, 2017).

Some authors point out that the primordial and simplest function of sleep is to allow the recovery of energy expenditure during the waking period, favouring the conservation and restoration of energy and cerebral energy metabolism. However, other functions have been attributed, particularly during REM sleep, such as maintaining the body's overall balance in binocular vision, the biochemical processes of the brain that regulate the entire wake-sleep cycle, organization and structuring of memory skills, and body temperature regulation. The functions of sleep are associated with the general balance of the body, so when there are sleep disturbances a wide range of changes may arise in terms of cognitive, social, physical, or occupational functioning. In short, sleep disturbances can be strongly detrimental to the quality of life of individuals (Mindell, & Leec, 2015).

Given the importance of sleep in child development and its interference with behaviour, we are interested in understanding the extent to which sleep hygiene and/or sleep disturbances may potentiate aggressive behaviour in school-aged children. Aggressive behaviours are common among children, and are a major problem in schools (Gomes, 2013). Bullying is characterized by physical or verbal violence behaviours in which one of the actors assumes power over the other. The victim is the object of aggression and plays this role repeatedly. This aggression can be performed by a single individual or by a group (Olweus, 1997). Bullying behaviours are repeated over time and occur mostly in the school space, and include: insults, jokes, mocking, derogatory nicknames, scorning, exclusion, beating up, threatening, stealing, sexually touching, and intimidating. The victim may suffer in silence or share what happened, however, being a victim of bullying is always a highly traumatic and suffering situation (Gomes, 2013).

Bullying children are at high risk of developing behavioural problems, have a higher psychiatric risk, delinquency, substance abuse, antisocial behaviour, violence, and criminal activity, while children who are victims of bullying are more likely to develop poor self-image, depression and low quality of life (O`Brien, Lucas, Guire, Felt, Chervin, Hoban, & Ruzicka, 2011),

We are interested in understanding the possible relationships between sleep problems and aggressive behaviour or bullying. Knowing that there is a negative effect caused by sleep deficit in the cortical pre-frontal functioning, this can contribute to loss of control in terms of emotions, including loss of the regulation of aggressive impulses. There may also be a relationship between sleep problems and aggressive behaviours according to individual variation in terms of certain neurobiological systems. These variations may be responsible for exaggerated aggressive responses that are justified by the loss of sleep in certain individuals. Accordingly, it is paramount to identify individuals at risk, because if they are identified and treated for their sleep problems, aggressive and violent behaviours can be controlled and downright reduced (Kamphuisa, Meerlob. Koolhaasb, & Lancela, 2012).

Problem Statement

Do children who practice bullying have more sleep disturbances than those who do not practice bullying?

• It is expected that there will be differences in the quality of sleep between aggressive and non-aggressive children and between victims and non-victims of bullying.

Research Questions

This study aims to analyse whether there is a relationship between sleep quality and bullying behaviours in school-aged children.

• Are there differences in sleep quality between victims and non-victims of bullying?

• Are there are differences in sleep quality between aggressors and non-aggressors?

• Do aggressors have higher SDI than non-aggressors?

• What are the sleep characteristics in aggressors, non-aggressors and victims and non-victims of bullying?

Purpose of the Study

This study has the following objectives:

• To analyse whether school-aged children who practice bullying have worse sleep quality than those who do not practice it;

• To analyse the sleep characteristics of aggressive and non-aggressive children;

• To analyse the sleep characteristics of children who are victims and non-victims

Research Methods

Findings

A summary of the results obtained from the study is presented next in order to answer the four main research questions.

Conclusion

It is clear that there are differences in the quality of sleep between children who are victims of bullying and non-victims. The results of this study assume that children who are victims of bullying show significant differences in the quality of sleep and have a higher SDI in 4 dimensions in 8 of the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ-PT). These findings are in line with those from the University of Warwick’s study that found that nightmares or night terrors were more common in children who were victims of bullying and that they will be prone to suffer from parasomnias, including nightmares, nocturnal terrors and somnambulism (Lereya, 2014). In our study, there were no significant cases of somnambulism in the victims, but as part of the parasomnias there was increased tendency of the victims to wet the bed at night and wake up frightened by nightmares. The fact that children who are victims of bullying have lower sleep quality than non-victims may mean that the sleep characteristics of these children are a predictor of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTS). As Espelage, Sung Hong & Meban (2016) state, childhood bullying can be considered a strong predictor of the existence of posttraumatic stress (PTS). Moreover, childhood bullying victims have a higher risk profile for psychopathology (Klomek, Sourander, & Elonheimo, 2015).

There are no significant differences between aggressive and non-aggressive children with regard to the Sleep Disturbance Index (SDI). Therefore, it seems that sleep quality does not influence the behaviour of children regarding aggression and bullying. These results are not in line with the literature (O`Brien, et al. 2011; Kamphuisa, Meerlob. Koolhaasb, & Lancela, 2012; Halal et al, 2014; Chervin, Ruzicka, Archbold, & Dillon, 2015; Angelhoff, 2017).

Although the SDI of aggressor children was not significantly higher than the SDI of non-aggressors, the aggressors show significant differences in seven of the eight dimensions of the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ-PT), particularly in the following: resistance to going to bed; here the aggressors find it harder to go to bed at the same time, and are more resistant to going to bed. In the duration of sleep dimension, they sleep less than other children. In the parasomnias, the aggressors wet the bed more often, have a more agitated sleep and wake up frightened by nightmares more often. In the daytime drowsiness dimension, aggressors wake up in a bad mood more often.

We cannot fail to mention that in general the SDI of the children in this sample is quite high in 50.6% of the sample, indicating that they have poor sleep quality. We emphasize that in the global sample, sleep problems are frequent, and may constitute an "invisible risk" for other problems (Carli, Hoven, Wasserman, Chiesa, Guffanti, & Sarchiapone, 2014). These results are in line with recent findings, which report the high frequency of sleep disturbances in today's Western society (Pyper, Harrington & Manson, 2017; Cheung, Bedford, Urabain, Karmiloff-Smith, & Smith, 2017). Therefore, we cannot ignore the sleep difficulties that these children have and we must reflect about the relationships between this general sleep poor quality and other types of behaviour and disturbances. As Gregory & Sadeh (2016) write, it is increasingly evident that childhood sleep disturbances are predictors of a wide range of psychopathologies and behavioural problems, although some associations are little known and are yet to be explored.

This study did not confirm the relationship between sleep problems and aggressive or bullying behaviours in school-aged children, but the aggressors stand out a little more in some disturbed sleep dimensions, such as parasomnias. Conducting an early assessment of each child's sleep can significantly help improve future sleep behaviours and enhance sleep quality. It is only with early intervention that it will be possible to identify and curb the possible relationships between sleep and behavioural problems in childhood (Wang, Isensee, Becker, Wong, Eastwood, Huang, Runions, Stewart, Meyer, Brüni, Zepf, & Rothenberger, 2016). On the other hand, parents should be made aware of the importance of their children having a good night's sleep, and the need to establish well-defined bedtime rules for children on weekdays should be emphasized, thus helping them to sleep enough and have adequate and good quality sleep. This awareness should be seen as an important effort to promote public health to enable the healthy development of children. This research has several limitations, such as the fact that it has used a convenience sample. We obtained an initial sample of 1160 participants, but 51 protocols were immediately invalidated and we were only able to have 883 questionnaires from the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ-PT) returned by the parents. Although our sample is approximately representative of Portugal’s population, the proportion of ethnic minorities was relatively small and was not a controlled variable, for which reason we did not examine differences between ethnic minority groups.

Acknowledgments

This study was sponsored by the Centre for Psychology Research of the Department of Psychology (CIP-UAL), Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa, Portugal.

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