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What is the role of sleep in children's behavioral, emotional, and cognitive regulation? This chapter considers theoretical and conceptual links between sleep and self-regulation, with special attention to sleep and self-regulation in early childhood. We selectively review the growing body of research on associations between sleep and self-regulation, mentioning some methodological issues. We also consider how child characteristics and sociocontextual factors may interact with sleep in the development of self-regulation in early childhood. We provide some relevant empirical examples from our own research., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Inhibitory control is thought to demonstrate heterotypic continuity, in other words, continuity in its purpose or function but changes in its behavioral manifestation over time. This creates major methodological challenges for studying the development of inhibitory control in childhood including construct validity, developmental appropriateness and sensitivity of measures, and longitudinal factorial invariance. We meta-analyzed 198 studies using measures of inhibitory control, a key aspect of self-regulation, to estimate age ranges of usefulness for each measure. The inhibitory control measures showed limited age ranges of usefulness owing to ceiling/floor effects. Tasks were useful, on average, for a developmental span of less than 3 years. This suggests that measuring inhibitory control over longer spans of development may require use of different measures at different time points, seeking to measure heterotypic continuity. We suggest ways to study the development of inhibitory control, with overlapping measurement in a structural equation modeling framework and tests of longitudinal factorial or measurement invariance. However, as valuable as this would be for the area, we also point out that establishing longitudinal factorial invariance is neither sufficient nor necessary for examining developmental change. Any study of developmental change should be guided by theory and construct validity, aiming toward a better empirical and theoretical approach to the selection and combination of measures.

The present study is part of a larger project that seeks to identify factors that predict children's behavioral, social, and cognitive adaptation to epilepsy. Children with seizures are more likely to have internalizing and externalizing behavior problems than either healthy children or children with other chronic illnesses. The present research examines risk factors for behavior problems. Early temperament and neuropsychological functioning, specifically executive function and language abilities, are evaluated as unique and moderating predictors of adverse behavioral outcomes in 229 children with a first recognized seizure. Parents assessed temperament, children were administered neuropsychological tests, and teachers evaluated behavior 36 months after seizure onset. Results revealed that early temperament and neuropsychological functioning, specifically executive function, predicted behavioral outcomes 3 years after seizure onset., (Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Children with epilepsy, even those with new-onset seizures, exhibit relatively high rates of behavior problems. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships among early temperament, family adaptive resources, and behavior problems in children with new-onset seizures. Our major goal was to test whether family adaptive resources moderated the relationship between early temperament dimensions and current behavior problems in 287 children with new-onset seizures. Two of the three temperament dimensions (difficultness and resistance to control) were positively correlated with total, internalizing, and externalizing behavior problems (all P<0.0001). The third temperament dimension, unadaptability, was positively correlated with total and internalizing problems (P<0.01). Family adaptive resources moderated the relationships between temperament and internalizing and externalizing behavior problems at school. Children with a difficult early temperament who live in a family environment with low family mastery are at the greatest risk for behavior problems.

The objective of this study was to describe comprehensively the structure and process of the childhood mealtime environment. A socioeconomically diverse sample of 142 families of kindergarteners (52% females) was observed at dinnertime using a focused-narrative observational system. Eighty-five percent of parents tried to get children to eat more, 83% of children ate more than they might otherwise have, with 38% eating moderately to substantially more. Boys were prompted to eat as often as girls and children were prompted to eat as many times in single- as in two-parent households. Children were very rarely restricted in their mealtime intake. High-SES parents used reasoning, praise, and food rewards significantly more often than low-SES families. Mothers used different strategies than fathers: fathers used pressure tactics with boys and mothers praised girls for eating. Future research should examine the meanings children ascribe to their parents' communications about food intake and how perceived parental messages influence the development of long-term dietary patterns. Interpreted alongside the evidence for children's energy self-regulation and the risk of disruption of these innate processes, it may be that parents are inadvertently socializing their children to eat past their internal hunger/satiety cues. These data reinforce current recommendations that parents should provide nutritious foods and children, not parents, should decide what and how much of these foods they eat.