Why do parents use screen media with toddlers? The role of child temperament and parenting stress in early screen use

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101595Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Toddlers’ higher negative affectivity was related to higher parenting stress.

  • Toddlers’ lower effortful control was related to higher parenting stress.

  • Higher parenting stress was associated with greater screen use in toddlers.

  • Parenting stress mediated the relation between negative affectivity and screen use.

  • Parenting stress mediated the relation between effortful control and screen use.

Abstract

Considering child characteristics may be an important piece to understanding parental decision-making for children’s screen use. The current cross-sectional study examined the mediating role of maternal parenting stress in the relation of child temperament to young children’s screen use. Recognizing the multidimensional aspects of temperament, three mediated pathways for three temperament domains (i.e., negative affectivity, surgency, and effortful control) were tested. Mothers of toddlers, 18–36 months (N = 296), completed an online survey, reporting on child temperament, total parenting stress, and child screen use. The results showed that mother-child dynamics were related to toddlers’ screen use. Toddlers’ negative affectivity and effortful control were each associated with toddlers’ screen use through maternal parenting stress. Higher negative affectivity was associated with higher maternal parenting stress, which in turn, was related to greater screen use in toddlers. Toddlers’ lower effortful control was related to higher maternal parenting stress, which in turn, was associated with greater screen use. Toddlers’ surgency was not related to either maternal parenting stress or toddlers’ screen use. The findings from this study contribute to an understanding of media-related parenting in toddlerhood and may help with the development of strategies for supporting healthy media habits in families with young children.

Introduction

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has recommended no TV or entertainment screen media for children under two years of age (American Academy of Pediatrics AAP, 2016). This guideline is supported by the lack of evidence on educational benefits of non-interactive media in this age group (Anderson & Pempek, 2005) and evidence of harm from excessive media exposure in young children (Barr, Lauricella, Zack, & Calvert, 2010). Despite these concerns, infants and toddlers spend a considerable amount of their waking hours looking at screens. A recent report revealed that American children under two consume an average of 42 min of screen media per day, and the majority of the screen time (40 min) consisted of watching TV, DVDs, or videos on any device (Rideout, 2017). Thus, parents of young children rarely adhere to the AAP’s guidance. Understanding why mothers allow their young children to use screen media is crucial to addressing the discrepancy between the guideline and real-world practice.

As early screen media use is often initiated and terminated by parents’ media-related decisions (Nathanson & Beyens, 2018), parental factors have been studied to understand young children’s screen media use. Parenting stress is one of the factors that has been associated with toddlers’ screen use, supporting the importance of family contexts in parental decision-making for child screen use (Pempek & McDaniel, 2016). Parenting behaviors are influenced by dynamics between parents and children, and mothers interact differently with their children based on the children’s characteristics and needs (Putnam, Sanson, & Rothbart, 2002). Indeed, prior work has revealed that child temperament is related to child screen time (Nabi & Kracmar, 2016; Radesky, Silverstein, Zuckerman, & Christakis, 2014). However, little research to date on young children’s screen use has considered parenting stress as a mechanism underlying the association between child temperament and media exposure. In this study, we examined how children’s temperament was related to their screen use through maternal parenting stress. Particularly, increased autonomy and noncompliance in toddlerhood, which is likely related to children’s temperament, may lead to greater parenting demands (Chester & Blandon, 2016; Teti & Huang, 2005), which could be related to increased maternal parenting stress. Both of these factors are expected to be associated with mothers’ media-related decisions potentially as ways to decrease stress and handle children’s temper tantrums or acting out in this developmental period (Potegal & Davidson, 2003). Considering rapid growth in brain, cognition, and socioemotional development and prolonged effects of environmental factors during the early years of life (Diamond, 2002; Knickmeyer et al., 2008), creating a beneficial media environment is essential for children’s healthy development.

Temperament is one primary characteristic beginning at birth and classically defined as “constitutionally based individual differences in reactivity and self-regulation” (Rothbart & Derryberry, 1981, p. 384). Reactivity refers to reactions to the environment, including emotional reactions (e.g., fear, anger, pleasure) and behavioral tendencies when children experience changes in the environment (Eisenberg et al., 2010). Regulation from a temperament perspective is often viewed as effortful control, which includes “the ability to willfully or voluntarily inhibit, activate, or change (modulate) attention and behavior” (Eisenberg, Smith, & Spinrad, 2016, p. 458). Temperament in early childhood is considered multidimensional, conceptualized into two dimensions of reactivity, which are negative affectivity and surgency and one for regulation, which is effortful control (Gartstein & Rothbart, 2003; Rothbart & Bates, 2006).

Although a growing body of research on young children’s media use has documented that child temperament is related to children’s use of media (Nathanson & Beyens, 2018; Radesky, Peacock-Chambers, Zuckerman, & Silverstein, 2016; Thompson, Adair, & Bentley, 2013; Zimmerman & Christakis, 2007), most of the work has not considered the multidimensional nature of temperament, focusing on either reactive or regulatory traits. Each dimension, however, reflects specific characteristics that distinguish it from other dimensions (Gartstein, Putnam, & Rothbart, 2012). Given research findings that each temperament dimension elicits different developmental outcomes and parenting behaviors (Molfese et al., 2010; Neppl, Jeon, Diggs, & Donnellan, 2020; Rothbart, 2007), there may be unique relations of each dimension to children’s screen use.

The reactive dimensions of temperament include negative affectivity and surgency. Negative affectivity reflects the tendency to easily experience discomfort, anger, fear, sadness, and irritability (Gartstein & Rothbart, 2003). Children with high negative affectivity were more likely to be distressed, frustrated, and difficult to soothe (Oddi, Murdock, Vadnais, Bridgett, & Gartstein, 2013). Surgency is a tendency to actively engage with the environment (Oddi et al., 2013) and can be displayed through smiling, laughing, approaching novel stimuli, activity, and impulsivity (Gartstein & Rothbart, 2003). Thompson et al. (2013) reported that infants high in activity, crying, and distress had more exposure to television. Similarly, mothers who rated their toddlers higher in social-emotional difficulties such as frequent crying and irritability were more likely to provide mobile technologies to calm down children’s tantrums and keep peace in the house (Radesky et al., 2016). These findings suggest that mothers may use media when their children are higher in reactivity, including negative emotionality or surgency, as a way to deal with the children’s temperamental reactivity.

Effortful control, the regulatory dimension of temperament, helps children to control attention and inhibit behavior (Bridgett, Oddi, Laake, Murdock, & Bachmann, 2013). Since low effortful control has been linked to difficulties in self-soothing, sleeping, and feeding in early childhood (Egger & Emde, 2011), regulation has been the main temperament characteristic studied when predicting young children’s screen use. Challenges in soothing or controlling toddlers’ mood and behaviors may encourage parents to place a screen in front of their children to calm them down or keep them still by distracting toddlers’ attention through fast-paced media contents (Lillard, Drell, Richey, Boguszewski, & Smith, 2015). There is evidence to suggest that parents use media to handle children’s low effortful control (Cliff, Howard, Radesky, McNeill, & Vella, 2018; Linder, Potter, & Garrity, 2020; Radesky et al., 2014). Radesky et al. (2014) found a longitudinal association between children’s regulatory temperament and their media use, indicating that children with self-regulation problems at 9 months were exposed to more TV and video at age 2.

Considering the multidimensional aspects of temperament, there may be unique relations of each dimension to children’s screen use. Mothers may engage in parenting practices differently based on each dimension of temperament because each dimension has distinct characteristics and needs (Oddi et al., 2013). Thus, whereas most prior work has only focused on a specific aspect of temperament, the current study examined all three dimensions of temperament to disentangle specific links between temperament and screen media use. Being mindful of the critical role of the environment during the early years of life, it is crucial to understand how mothers of toddlers foster media environments that may be linked to children’s temperament. In this regard, our work can provide practical guidelines for parents based on distinct characteristics of children.

Parenting stress is an important parental factor that has been shown to play a critical role in parenting behaviors, including mothers’ decision-making in children’s screen media use (Pempek & McDaniel, 2016). Parenting stress is conceptualized as negative perceptions or feelings about the demands of parenthood (Deater-Deckard, 1998), and parents who experience higher levels of parenting stress often have less energy and motivation to deal with parenting roles and interactions with their children (Beyens, Eggermont, & Nathanson, 2016). Therefore, higher parenting stress has been related to less optimal parenting, such as a harsh parenting style (Huth-Bocks & Hughes, 2008) and emotional distance from children (Moreira & Canavarro, 2018). Given that parenting stress has been associated with a lack of resources to meet demands of parenting (Neece, Green, & Baker, 2012), mothers who experience higher levels of parenting stress are more likely to need resources to help them reduce the demands of parenting.

Screen media use is likely to provide parents with time to cope with parenting stress by occupying their children with media content and thus potentially lowering the demands of parenting. Indeed, prior research has found a positive association between stress that parents experience and children’s screen media use (Pempek & McDaniel, 2016; Warren & Aloia, 2019). Mothers with greater concerns about parenting reported higher screen media use by their children (Warren & Aloia, 2019). Similarly, mothers with higher stress in personal and family situations tended to allow their children to use more mobile media (Pempek & McDaniel, 2016). Despite the link between stress and children’s media use, little work has considered stress specific to parenting. Parenting stress is distinct from stress in other roles and situations (Deater-Deckard, 2008) and includes intricate processes, including parent-child relationship and resources around parenting (Deater-Deckard, 1998). Examining general stressors does not fully reflect the complex nature of parenting stress and its potential role in children’s media use; therefore, in the current study, we examined relations between parenting stress and toddlers’ screen time.

Parenting behaviors are shaped within the context of interactions between mothers and children (Kiff, Lengua, & Zalewski, 2011). As a primary determinant of parenting (Belsky & Jaffee, 2006), child temperament may play a crucial role in mothers’ media-related decisions through links with parenting stress. Previous research reveals that child temperament has been related to maternal parenting stress (Bayly & Gartstein, 2013; Hartman, Stage, & Webster‐Stratton, 2003; Jonas & Kochanska, 2018; Scher & Sharabany, 2005). Children who displayed high negative affectivity and low effortful control had mothers reporting higher levels of parenting stress (Bayly and Gartstein, 2013; Scher & Sharabany, 2005). Surgency, exuberance (Nigg, 2006), sensation seeking (Jonas & Kochanska, 2018), and impulsivity (Hartman et al., 2003) have been positively linked to maternal parenting stress. However, the majority of research on parents’ media-related decision-making (Cingel & Krcmar, 2013; Duch, Fisher, Ensari, & Harrington, 2013; Garrison, Liekweg, & Christakis, 2011; Thompson et al., 2013) has not examined the mediating role of parenting stress in the relation between child temperament and media use.

As parenting stress reflects challenging parent-child relationships and the lack of parenting resources (Akerman, 1995), temperament may be a source of parenting stress, which in turn relates to maternal decision-making on child media use. Given that mothers with greater parenting stress are more likely to have less resources for dealing with the parenting role (Neece et al., 2012), mothers who lack energy and motivation for parenting may utilize media as a parental tool. Indeed, the positive association between maternal parenting stress and children’s media use has been found in prior research (McDaniel & Radesky, 2020; Pempek & McDaniel, 2016; Warren & Aloia, 2019). Thus, mothers of children rated high in negative affectivity and surgency and low in effortful control may experience greater parenting stress, which in turn, may predict more screen media use for their children.

Although prior research examined individual contributions of child temperament and parenting stress to children’s screen media use (McDaniel & Radesky, 2020; Nabi & Krcmar, 2016; Radesky et al., 2014, 2016), it remains unclear whether child temperament is related to screen use through parenting stress. Considering the critical role of the environment during the early years of life, it is crucial to understand how mothers of toddlers foster a media environment that may be associated with their children’s temperament as well as their own stress felt in their roles as parents. In the current study, we examined the extent to which the associations between child temperament and screen use was mediated by maternal parenting stress. Specifically, we tested a mediated pathway for each temperamental domain: negative affectivity, surgency, and effortful control. Based on the extant literature, we expected that children with high negative affectivity, high surgency, and low effortful control would have mothers with greater parenting stress, which would be associated with more screen use for children.

Section snippets

Procedure

Participants were recruited through Qualtrics’ Research Panel Service, which connects researchers with internet-based participant panels. Qualtrics’ Panel Service sent a link to our online survey to their online panels and recruited participants if eligibility criteria were met. Informed consent was obtained from survey participants electronically prior to commencing the survey. The eligibility criteria for this study included being mothers of children between 18–36 months, being 18 years and

Preliminary analyses

Descriptive statistics and correlations between study variables are presented in Table 1. Using bivariate correlations, we examined whether child age and sex were significantly related to the study variables. Older children were reported higher in effortful control. Next, we used partial correlations to examine the associations among the variables of interest after controlling for child age and sex. Among the three child temperament dimensions, child surgency and child effortful control were

Discussion

The current study examined maternal parenting stress as a mediator in the relation of child temperament (i.e., negative affectivity, surgency, and effortful control) to maternal decision-making around child screen use. The findings from this study demonstrated that mother-child dynamics were related to toddlers’ screen use. Child negative affectivity and effortful control were associated with maternal parenting stress. Further, maternal parenting stress was related to children’s screen use.

Author statements

Eunkyung Shin: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Investigation, Data Curation, Formal analysis, Writing - Original draft preparation. Koeun Choi: Conceptualization, Software, Validation, Resources, Data curation, Writing - Reviewing and Editing, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition. Jessica Resor: Data curation, Validation, Visualization, Writing - Reviewing and Editing. Cynthia L. Smith: Conceptualization, Methodology, Resources, Writing - Reviewing and Editing,

Funding

This research was supported by funds provided by the Institute for Society, Culture and Environment at Virginia Tech; findings and opinions in this manuscript do not reflect endorsement by the funder.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors report no declarations of interest.

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