Predicting weekday and weekend sleep: Interactions between peers and mothers

Abstract

Adolescents often experience insufficient, inconsistent and poor-quality sleep. Deviant peer affiliation may promote insufficient or inconsistent sleep schedules, and could be an important factor in understanding adolescents' sleep. Furthermore, parenting behaviours have been shown to impact sleep in youth. We examined relations between deviant peer affiliation and sleep in adolescents, and assessed the role of maternal management of peer relationships as a moderator of these associations. A sample of 131 adolescents (M_age = 15.75 years, SD = 9.5 months; 70% white, 30% black; 54% female) reported their deviant peer affiliation, and mothers reported their directive and non-directive management of peer relationships. Adolescents wore actigraphs for 1 week to assess sleep hours, efficiency, onset and latency, which were used to calculate weekend (Friday–Saturday) and weekday (Sunday–Thursday) sleep parameters. Using latent difference score models, results indicated that deviant peer affiliation was associated with shorter and less efficient sleep during the weekend. Moderation effects suggested that deviant peer affiliation related to fewer sleep hours, later sleep onset and longer sleep latency during the weekend for adolescents with higher levels of non-directive maternal management. Furthermore, the greatest difference between weekend and weekday sleep onset was found for youth with both higher levels of deviant peer affiliation and higher levels of non-directive maternal management of peer relationships. Results of this study provide evidence that deviant peer relationships may be particularly influential for weekend sleep, and that more active maternal management of peer relationships can protect against poor sleep.