Objective  To explore the mediating effect of sleep disorders on the relationship between children′s behavioral/emotional problems and parenting styles in preschool children and to provide evidences for family intervention on psychological behavior problems in the children.

  Methods  Using random cluster sampling we selected 10 kindergartens in urban Xuzhou city, Jiangsu province and conducted a survey among all the parents (n = 2 582) of the children of the kindergartens during February – April 2018. We adopted the Children′s Sleep Health Questionnaire (CSHQ), Strength and Difficulty Questionnaire (SDQ), and Parent Behavior Inventory (PBI) to collect relevant information. AMOS 22.0 software was used to construct a structural equation model in data analysis.

  Results  For all the children, the CSHQ score was 49.7 ± 5.0; the SDQ score was 10.0 ± 4.4; the prosocial behavior score was 7.23 ± 1.9; the paternal and maternal support and participation score were 35.4 ± 8.2 and 39.2 ± 7.3 and the paternal and maternal hostile and force were 17.4 ± 6.5 and 17.8 ± 6.8, respectively. Correlation analysis demonstrated that the total CSHQ score and SDQ difficulty score was positively correlated with paternal and maternal hostile and force score and inversely correlated with paternal and maternal support and participation score (all P < 0.05); the SDQ difficulty score was inversely correlated with prosocial behavior score (P < 0.01); the prosocial behavior score was positively correlated with paternal and maternal support and participation score but inversely correlated with paternal and maternal hostile and force score (P < 0.01 for all). The indirect effect coefficients were 0.04 (95% confidence interval 95% CI: 0.028 – 0.052), 0.02 (95% CI: 0.005 – 0.025), and 0.01 (95% CI: 0.001 to 0.018) for the mediating effect of CSHQ total score on the associations of the children′s SDQ difficulty score with maternal hostile score, paternal hostile and force score, and maternal support and participation.

  Conclusion  Sleep disorders exert a significant mediating effect on the relationship between behavioral emotional problems and parenting style in preschool children.