The Effects of a Parental Intervention on Electronic Media Exposure and Sleep Patterns in Adolescents

Amongst adolescents, there is a gap that widens with age between recommended sleep duration and actual sleep time. Due to this gap, bodily and mental functions such as those related to the metabolic and immune systems, performance, memory, school achievement and creative ability can be harmed. Moreover, lack of sleep involves an increased risk of accidents and injuries, behavior problems and reduced quality of life.

Biological factors that explain changes in sleep patterns include delays in the circadian timing system and in the homeostatic system that regulate sleep and wakefulness. These changes cause a growing and continuous delay in sleep phase during adolescence. In addition, a number of environmental factors affect sleep patterns: variables such as early school start time, increased homework assignments, after-school activities, lack of parental demand for adequate sleep hours, and increased "screen time," or use of electronic media, including television, computer games, internet and cellular phones.

Based on the Parental Style model, the authoritative parenting style is characterized by parents setting high demands on their children on the one hand and displaying high levels of responsiveness to their children on the other. The authoritarian parenting style is characterized by parents setting high demands on their children on the one hand yet displaying low levels of responsiveness to their children on the other. The permissive parenting style is characterized by parents setting low demands on their children and displaying high levels of responsiveness to their children. In several investigations, the authoritative parenting style has been shown to have a positive influence on child development, academic achievement and psychosocial competency, and promoted healthy behaviors in adolescents, such as good eating habits, increased physical activity and a decrease in risky behaviors such as smoking, alcohol abuse, extreme diets and early sexual behavior.

The Conceptual Model views parents as the sole agents of change in their children's life, and focuses on the power of personal example, environmental changes and promotion of the authoritative parental style. This model has been found to be effective in the field of eating disorders but has never been implemented in the field of sleep.

The main aim of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention program that deals with increasing parents' awareness of the changes that characterize adolescents and encourages the authoritative parental style based on the Parenting Style Model; it also encourages parents to make environmental changes at home based on the Conceptual Model in order to promote healthy behaviors including healthy sleep patterns and controlled exposure to electronic media in young normative adolescents (ages 10-12) .