Parental Perspectives of Sleep in the Home: Shaping Home-School Partnerships in School-Based Promotion Initiatives

Introduction Sleep is a critical component of child health and the prevention of chronic disease. Children may benefit from school-based sleep promotion; however, parents need to be involved for healthy sleep strategies learned at school to be translated to the home. The ob-jective of this study was to explore parental perspectives on sleep behaviors and responsiveness to school-based sleep promotion.Methods Twenty-five parents of school-aged children were purposively sampled for interviews from July 2019 through April 2020 in Al-berta, Canada. Descriptive qualitative methodology was used, and data were generated through semistructured interviews and re-searcher field notes. Interviews were transcribed and themes were identified by using latent content analysis.Results Three themes emerged from analysis: 1) sleep is valued and sup-ported, 2) barriers to healthy sleep exist, and 3) schools are allies in promoting sleep. Parents perceived that sleep was essential for their child's health, facilitated healthy sleep practices in the home, and highlighted barriers (busy schedules and poor parental role models) that affected sleep. Parents supported and expressed value in school-based sleep promotion and noted factors that affected the success of school-based sleep promotion.Conclusion Parents are responsive to school-based sleep promotion. Promo-tion efforts should include resources that engage and involve par-ents in the school community. Throughout the development of re-sources to support school-based sleep promotion, additional con-sideration of parent-reported barriers to promoting healthy sleep in the home should be included.