By Stephen Beech via SWNS
Parents who use a “digital dummy” to calm their child’s tantrums are harming their emotional development, according to a new study.
Youngsters given a smartphone, laptop or tablet to play with after an outburst of temper fail to learn how to regulate their emotions, say scientists.
They found that when toddlers are given digital devices to calm their tantrums, they don’t learn how to regulate their emotions – which could lead to severe problems later in life
The research team explained that kids learn much about self-regulation – affective, mental, and behavioral responses to certain situations – during their first few years of life.
Some of those behaviors are about children’s ability to choose a deliberate response over an automatic one – known as “effortful control” – which is learned from the environment, first and foremost through children’s relationship with their parents.
Giving youngsters digital devices to control their responses to emotions, especially if they’re negative, has become common in recent years.
Now, a team of researchers in Hungary and Canada has investigated if the modern method strategy – referred to as “parental digital emotion regulation” – leads to the inability of children to effectively regulate their emotions later in life.
Study first author Dr. Veronika Konok said: “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.
“This leads to more severe emotion-regulation problems, specifically, anger management problems, later in life.”
Study senior author Caroline Fitzpatrick, a researcher at the Université de Sherbrooke in Canada, said: “We frequently see that parents use tablets or smartphones to divert the child’s attention when the child is upset.
“Children are fascinated by digital content, so this an easy way to stop tantrums and it is very effective in the short term,”
However, the research team expected that in the long run, the practice has little benefit.
To confirm the theory, they conducted an assessment in 2020 and a follow-up a year later.
More than 300 parents of children aged between two- and five-year-olds completed a questionnaire that assessed child and parent media use.
The findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, showed that when parents used digital emotion regulation more often, children showed poorer anger and frustration management skills a year later.
Youngsters who were given devices more often as they experienced negative emotions also showed less effortful control at the follow-up assessment.
Dr. Konok, of Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, said: “Tantrums cannot be cured by digital devices.
“Children have to learn how to manage their negative emotions for themselves.
“They need the help of their parents during this learning process, not the help of a digital device.”
The researchers also found that poorer anger management skills at the outset of the study meant that children were given digital devices more often as a management tool.
Dr. Konok said: “It’s not surprising that parents more frequently apply digital emotion regulation if their child has emotion regulation problems, but our results highlight that this strategy can lead to the escalation of a pre-existing issue.”
The researchers say it’s important not to avoid situations that could be frustrating to the child.
Instead, they recommend that parents “coach” their kids through difficult situations, help them recognize their emotions, and teach them to handle them.
To equip parents of children with anger management issues for success, the research team says it is important that they receive support. For example, health professionals working with families could provide information on how parents can help their children manage their emotions without giving them digital devices.
Fitzpatrick added: “Based on our results, new training and counseling methods could be developed for parents.
“If peoples’ awareness about digital devices being inappropriate tools for curing tantrums increases, children’s mental health and well-being will profit,”
