The Moderating Role of Parental Strain on the Relationship Between Child Media Use and Regulation.

Abstract

Research suggests that toddlers with regulation issues engage in significantly more media use than toddlers without regulation difficulties, and this may be due, in part, to parental strain associated with parenting a child who is difficult to regulate or soothe. The current study sought to determine if the observed relationship between parental strain and child media use in the context of regulation difficulties continues into the preschool years. Data from the 2016 (N = 6,976) and 2017 (N = 3,056) National Survey of Children's Health were used to test a structural equation model (SEM) examining the moderating effect of parenting strain on the relationship between child media use and child regulation after controlling for socioeconomic status (SES) and adverse childhood experiences. The SEM had reasonable model fit. The study did not find a moderating effect for parenting strain but did identify a small significant relationship between child media use and regulation after controlling for parenting strain and SES. Additionally, SES proved to be a strong moderator of regulation and child media use. These findings point to the possibility that the relationship between parental strain and child media use may be more directly related to perceived ability to calm their child identified in previous research rather than perception of child's difficulty. This study demonstrated that the negative link between child media use and regulation may persist into the preschool years. Limitations of the study include broad items used to assess time spent with media and limited depth of questions associated with regulation and parenting strain.