In today’s digital age, it’s become increasingly common for parents to hand their upset child a smartphone or tablet to calm them down. But could this seemingly harmless practice be hindering children’s emotional development? A new study from researchers at Eötvös Loránd University and the Université de Sherbrooke suggests that using digital devices as emotional pacifiers may have unintended long-term consequences.
The study, published in Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, followed 265 Canadian families with preschool-aged children over the course of a year. The researchers aimed to understand the relationship between parents using digital devices to regulate their children’s emotions and the development of children’s self-regulatory skills.
Digital pacifiers and self-regulation
Self-regulation is a crucial skill that develops in early childhood. It involves the ability to manage one’s emotions, control impulses, and direct attention. These skills are essential for success in school and later in life. They help children navigate social situations, focus on tasks, and cope with frustration.
The researchers looked at three specific aspects of self-regulation: anger management, effortful control, and impulsivity. Anger management relates to how well a child can handle frustration and angry feelings. Effortful control involves the ability to focus attention and inhibit inappropriate responses. Impulsivity refers to how quickly a child acts without thinking.
What the study found was concerning. Parents who frequently used digital devices to calm their children when upset saw negative effects on their kids’ self-regulation skills a year later. Children whose parents often relied on “digital pacifiers” showed more difficulty managing anger and had lower levels of effortful control.
Imagine a scenario where a child is having a tantrum in a grocery store. A parent, desperate for a quick fix, hands over their smartphone to distract and calm the child. While this might work in the moment, the study suggests that repeatedly using this strategy could prevent the child from learning how to manage their emotions on their own.
Interestingly, the relationship also worked in the other direction, albeit to a lesser extent. Children who had more difficulty managing anger at the beginning of the study were more likely to have parents who used digital devices for emotional regulation a year later. This suggests a potential cycle where children’s difficult behavior leads to more reliance on digital pacifiers, which in turn may worsen self-regulation skills.
“Here we show that if parents regularly offer a digital device to their child to calm them or to stop a tantrum, the child won’t learn to regulate their emotions,” explains the study’s first author Dr. Veronika Konok, a researcher at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, in a statement. “This leads to more severe emotion-regulation problems, specifically, anger management problems, later in life.”
‘Tantrums cannot be cured by digital devices’
This research comes at a time when children’s screen time is at an all-time high. The COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated this trend, with many children spending more time than ever in front of screens for both education and entertainment.
While digital devices can be valuable tools for learning and connection, this study highlights the importance of being mindful about how and when we use them with young children. Instead of relying on screens to soothe upset children, parents might consider alternative strategies that help kids learn to manage their emotions.
For example, parents could try talking through emotions with their child, using deep breathing exercises, or engaging in a calming activity together like reading a book or coloring. These approaches may take more time and effort in the moment, but they could pay off in the long run by helping children develop crucial self-regulation skills.
Source: https://studyfinds.org/digital-pacifiers-children-emotional-anger-issues/