Higher parental stress linked to low screen-time enforcement
June 15, 2020
Science Daily/University of Guelph
When parents are under stress, household rules about screen time often get abandoned, new University of Guelph research finds.
A first of its kind in Canada, the study found parents of young children reporting high levels of life or parenting stress were less likely to monitor and limit their kids' screen use and more likely to use their own devices in front of their children.
Published in the Journal of Children and Media, the research comes at a time when many Canadian families are experiencing more stress than usual because of upheaval caused by COVID-19 pandemic.
The study surveyed 64 parents from 39 families of children 18 months to five years of age taking part in the Guelph Family Health Study. The parents were asked about their stress as well as whether they monitored and limited their children's screen use, and whether they used screens in front of their children.
Lead author Lisa Tang, a PhD student in the Department of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition, said previous U of G research has shown that parenting practices influence how much time children spend on screens.
"With this study, we wanted to understand the implications of parental stress on media parenting practices. We found parenting stress does indeed affect how parents manage screen time but influenced mothers and fathers differently," she said.
For example, when mothers reported a high level of general life stress, they were more likely to report they used devices in front of their children and less likely to monitor or limit their kids' screen use.
That may be because mothers anticipate conflicts with their children if they attempt to impose limits so decide it is either too hard or not worth the fight during times of stress, said Tang.
But fathers, who reported high general life stress, were more likely to limit their kids' screen use.
This could mean that stressed dads are more likely to enforce rules, said Tang. Or it could suggest that when children already have screen limits, fathers are more likely to report high general life stress because children who can't use devices might increase their demands on their parents, she added.
Mothers who reported they found parenting itself stressful were more likely to say they used devices in front of their children and were less likely to monitor or limit their children's screen use. Fathers experiencing similar stress reported no change.
"Parents do seem to say they use their screens more when they say they are under stress, perhaps as an escape," said Tang. "This is an important finding because research has shown that when parents use screens in front of their preschool-aged children, it is associated with those children having greater levels of screen time."
Prof. Jess Haines said this research is not about making parents feel guilty about screen use.
"There's nothing wrong with using screens now and again. We are all doing the best we can, especially now, and parents of children under five need to allow themselves a break. This is really about excess screen time. It's about making parents conscious of their practices and balancing active play with screen time, and modelling that behaviour," she said.
Study co-author Valerie Hruska, a doctoral candidate in U of G's Department of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences, said the study's findings are important given the potential health consequences for young children.
"Previous research has shown that high screen use is linked to health issues in children, including lower activity levels, obesity and even language delays in younger children because they engage in less back-and-forth conversation," she said.
One surprising finding involved a slightly different kind of stress called household chaos, which assesses commotion and noise in a home. The researchers expected high household chaos would be linked to high screen use but found the opposite: chaos was linked with more screen-time monitoring by both mothers and fathers.
The researchers theorize that when children put away their devices and get involved in other activities in the house, it leads to more chaos compared to quieter screen time.
"So perhaps a little chaos in the home isn't a bad thing if it means kids take a break from screens," said Hruska, adding the next goal is to help find ways for parents to limit screen times without increasing household chaos.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200615140823.htm
Poor sleep in infancy linked to behavioral and emotional problems in toddlers
March 11, 2020
Science Daily/University of Birmingham
Disrupted and poor quality sleep in the earliest months of a child's life can be an indicator of depression, anxiety and behavioural problems among toddlers, according to a new study.
Researchers at the Institute for Mental Health, at the University of Birmingham in collaboration with the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, in Helsinki, found a clear relationship between sleep problems in infancy such as frequent night wakings, short sleep duration or difficulty in falling asleep and particular emotional and behavioural problems at 24 months of age.
Although childhood sleep problems are extremely common and their association with daytime behavioural difficulties is well recognised, this study shows for the first time how sleep problems in infancy and very early childhood are associated with emotional and behavioural problems later in childhood.
The team believes these findings, published in BMJ Paediatrics Open, highlight the need to address infant sleep problems at an early stage, to prevent the development or worsening of future emotional and behavioural problems in later stages of childhood.
The team studied the results of two sleep questionnaires completed by parents within the CHILD-SLEEP birth-cohort, a large study cohort based in southern Finland. For this specific study, the researchers obtained information from nearly 1700 parents who completed a baseline questionnaire, and reported on sleep habits of their children at 3,8, 18 and 24 months. These results were compared with a separate questionnaire on emotional and behavioural symptoms, which was completed by 950 parents at the child´s age of 24 months..
The researchers found that high frequency of night wakings at 3 months was strongly linked to emotional, behavioural and self-regulation (the ability to control emotions and behaviours) problems in toddlers.Further, infants who experienced shorter sleep duration, who took longer to fall asleep and who experienced frequent night wakings at different stages of early childhood were likely to find problems in regulating their behaviour and emotions at the age of 24 months, leading to disrupting emotions and behaviours, such as temper tantrums.
The study contributes to recent research on the role of early sleep problems in socio-emotional development.
Lead researcher Dr Isabel Morales-Muñoz explained: "Our results show that infants who sleep for shorter periods of time, take longer to fall asleep and wake up more frequently during the night are more likely to show emotional and behavioural problems in later stages of childhood. It's likely that sleep quality in these early months and the development of self-regulation -- the ability to control our behaviour -- are closely intertwined."
The study suggests that infant sleep problems may be due to a variety of mechanisms, including genetic and environmental factors.
"Scientists think there are links in the central nervous system between sleep-wake behaviour and our emotions, and so it's possible these links have a biological basis," says Dr Morales-Muñoz. "Environmental factors, such as sleeping practices in the family, parental reactions to crying and parental stress also play an important part in a child's sleep and socioemotional development."
Dr Morales-Muñoz added: "Although more research needs to be done in this area, we think early interventions in infants experiencing these sleep problems could be really beneficial and help very young children develop their behavioural and emotional self-control."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200311082937.htm
Parental burnout can lead to harmful outcomes for parent and child
August 28, 2019
Science Daily/Association for Psychological Science
When the daily stress of parenting becomes chronic it can turn into parental burnout, an intense exhaustion that leads parents to feel detached from their children and unsure of their parenting abilities, according to research published in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. This type of burnout can have serious consequences for both parent and child, increasing parental neglect, harm, and thoughts about escape.
"In the current cultural context, there is a lot of pressure on parents," says lead researcher Moïra Mikolajczak of UCLouvain. "But being a perfect parent is impossible and attempting to be one can lead to exhaustion. Our research suggests that whatever allows parents to recharge their batteries, to avoid exhaustion, is good for children."
Mikolajczak and coauthors James J. Gross of Stanford University and Isabelle Roskam of UCLouvain became interested in the issue through their clinical encounters with good parents who, as a result of their exhaustion, had become the opposite of what they were trying to be. Although previous research had explored the causes of parental burnout, relatively little was known about its consequences. The researchers decided to directly examine the outcomes associated with parental burnout in two studies that followed parents over time.
In the first study, Mikolajczak and colleagues recruited parents through social networks, schools, pediatricians, and other sources to participate in research on "parental well-being and exhaustion." The parents, mostly French-speaking adults in Belgium, completed three batches of online surveys spaced about 5.5 months apart.
The surveys included a 22-item measure of parental burnout that gauged parents' emotional exhaustion, emotional distancing, and feelings of inefficacy; a six-item measure that gauged their thoughts about escaping their family; a 17-item measure that gauged the degree to which they neglected their childrens' physical, educational and emotional needs; and a 15-item measure that gauged their tendency to engage in verbal, physical, or psychological violence.
Because many of the questions asked about sensitive topics, the researchers also measured participants' tendency to choose the most socially desirable responses when confronted with probing questions.
A total of 2,068 parents participated in the first survey, with 557 still participating at the third survey.
Participants' data revealed a strong association between burnout and the three variables -- escape ideation, parental neglect, and parental violence -- at each of the three time points.
Parental burnout at the first and second survey was associated with later parental neglect, parental violence, and escape ideation. The researchers found that parental burnout and parental neglect had a circular relationship: Parental burnout led to increased parental neglect, which led to increased burnout, and so on. Parental violence appeared to be a clear consequence of burnout.
Importantly, all of these patterns held even when the researchers took participants' tendency toward socially desirable responding into account.
A second online study with mostly English-speaking parents in the UK produced similar findings.
Together, the data suggest that parental burnout is likely the cause of escape ideation, parental neglect, and parental violence.
"We were a bit surprised by the irony of the results," says Mikolajczak. "If you want to do the right thing too much, you can end up doing the wrong thing. Too much pressure on parents can lead them to exhaustion which can have damaging consequences for the parent and for the children."
Additional studies are needed to confirm and extend these findings with broader samples and measures. Nonetheless, the robust pattern of results suggests that there are important lessons to be learned from these findings, the researchers say.
"Parents need to know that self-care is good for the child and that when they feel severely exhausted, they should seek help. Health and child services professionals need to be informed about parental burnout so that they can accurately diagnose it and provide parents with the most appropriate care. And those engaged in policy and public health need to help raise awareness and lift the taboo on parental burnout, which will encourage parents to seek the help they need," Mikolajczak concludes.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190828080538.htm