Silencing screaming with screens: The longitudinal relationship between media emotion regulation processes and children's emotional reactivity, emotional knowledge, and empathy.

Abstract

Many parents use screens to regulate their young children's emotions. We know very little, however, about how this parenting practice is related to the development of emotional competencies (i.e., emotional reactivity, emotion knowledge, and empathy) over time. The current longitudinal study examined bidirectional associations between media emotion regulation and various emotional competencies across a 1-year period during early childhood (between ages 3.5 and 4.5 on average). Participants included 269 child/parent dyads who completed a number of in-home tasks and questionnaires. Results revealed that higher levels of media emotion regulation were associated with worse emotional knowledge and empathy and higher emotional reactivity at the cross-sectional level. However, early media emotion regulation was associated with higher levels of child empathy 1 year later. We discuss these results in the context of general parenting practices and encourage future research on the topic with a focus on how these processes develop over time.

Predictors of Media Emotion Regulation and Its Consequences for Children’s Socioemotional Development

“…A similar result was reported with reactivity, a sub-dimension of negative affect, defined as the degree to which a person reacts physiologically and behaviorally to the environment. This study with children between three and five showed a positive relationship between children's reactivity and media emotion regulation; children with high reactivity experience media emotion regulation more frequently (Coyne et al 2023).…”

“…This scale, which has demonstrated sufficient reliability across various studies, includes items such as "How often do you pass your child your phone or other media device when your child gets fussy while driving somewhere in the car? (Coyne et al 2021(Coyne et al , 2023.…”

“…Given the ease of access to media in our daily lives, media emotion regulation is a method frequently employed by parents (Seo 2017). Also, children's experiences of media emotion regulation show stability over time (Coyne et al 2023). In other words, for children who experience media emotion regulation, this becomes a repeated behavioral pattern in their daily lives.…”

“…Media emotion regulation is negatively associated with children's socioemotional development (e.g., Coyne et al 2022Coyne et al , 2023. When parents use media such as videos to cope with or resolve difficult emotions, it hinders the children's ability to learn positive emotion regulation strategies (Gordon-Hacker and Gueron-Sela 2020).…”

“…This parenting method is defined as media emotion regulation in the literature, but for clarity in the Turkish text, it will be referred to as emotion regulation through media (medya aracılığıyla duygu düzenleme). Media emotion regulation has gained attention in recent academic studies regarding early childhood (Coyne et al 2021(Coyne et al , 2022(Coyne et al , 2023. These studies have explored various predictors of media emotion regulation and the relationship between media emotion regulation and children's socioemotional outcomes.…”