Study: Digital 'Pacifiers' Impede Emotional Regulation
Or, yet another reason why you shouldn't hand your kid a phone during a tantrum.
On the surface, iPads and smartphones appear to be a parent’s dream come true. These devices are like a magic wand that can weave a spell over a child and provide instant entertainment, anytime and anyplace. Whether you’re in a grocery store, a restaurant, a car, or elsewhere, if your child starts to fuss, all you have to do is hand over a small rectangle, and you will immediately have (relative) peace once again.
It’s no wonder parents take advantage of this miraculous development. There’s never been such a tool that can predictably engage and hold a child’s focus, no matter what else might be vying for their attention or emotions. It’s really quite amazing.
But it comes at a cost.
There’s the obvious loss of face-to-face communication with parents and siblings, an absence of creative flow state and opportunities for being bored and sitting alone with one’s own quiet thoughts. And it turns out, there’s another significant cost, too—the ability to learn long-term emotional regulation, which, one might argue, is a pretty big part of being a well-rounded adult.
Life, Paused
A new study just came out from researchers in Canada and Hungary, published June 27 in the journal Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychology. Researchers found that when parents hand over digital devices to children during tantrums or other emotional meltdowns—an act known as “parental digital emotional regulation,” or PDER—children fail to develop critical self-regulatory skills.
The study is described as “the first longitudinal study revealing bidirectional associations between parental digital emotional regulation and child emotion-regulation skills.” It found that more frequent reliance on screens to calm children resulted in higher levels of anger and frustration, as well as “lower effortful control.” Effortful control refers to the ability to choose a deliberate response to a situation over an automatic one, and it is learned from a child’s environment and repeated interactions with parents.
Children who were given devices in response to meltdowns fared poorly throughout the year of study and during follow-up assessments. The effects were seen longer-term, too. Said lead study author Dr. Veronika Konok in a press release, the practice of PDER “leads to more severe emotion-regulation problems, specifically, anger management problems, later in life.” Thus, digital devices are “inappropriate tools for curing tantrums.”
These findings should alarm most parents, considering that PDER is common practice. An estimated 65% of parents rely on digital devices to calm their children in public settings, and TV is often used to distract and “settle” children at home (and to give parents a break). A whopping 26% of American children between the ages of 0 and 4 spend more than 4 hours a day in front of a screen, and at that young age, it’s fair to assume the parent is providing the device.
The Parental Assignment
Don’t get me wrong; I do understand why parents are tempted to do this. Parenting is so darn hard, so endlessly demanding and overwhelming, that having a quick and easy escape hatch can feel like the most wonderful thing in the world. But it’s imperative to resist that urge. Parents have a job to do, which is teach children how to respond appropriately to every situation, especially the hard ones. Timing is never convenient, and these lessons have to be reinforced over and over again for years.
I remember hauling my toddlers out of restaurants and sitting with them outside until they were ready to behave properly in public. Did I resent missing out on the adult conversation going on inside, not to mention my food growing cold? Of course. Did I have a choice? Not really. Especially if I wanted to avoid having this exact same problem repeated the next time we went out.
Giving a child a device to override a strongly negative emotional response is a Band-Aid solution. It’s like taking a strong drug to override pain in the body, without addressing the root cause. It masks symptoms, creates a façade of capability, and allows a family to limp through the day, surviving but not thriving.
Here’s how I think about it: It’s like putting a child’s real life on pause for however many minutes they’re staring at the screen. They’re frozen in time, locked out of the world, sucked into their “experience blocker.” During that time, their physical body might be growing, but their emotional and psychological development is stagnating. If you do this for long enough, they will miss out on a big chunk of development, and their brains won’t catch up to their bodies.
What’s the Alternative?
Remember, it’s what parents have done for centuries before, so this is not a novel concept. You’re not alone. Here are a few ideas:
Remove digital devices from the equation entirely. If your kid knows they’re never an option, they will stop asking. Kids learn fast.
Don’t be on your own phone. Your kid can sense your dissociation and will act out to try to get your attention.
Avoid going out in public if they’re tired or hungry. Sometimes it can’t be avoided, but being strategic about errands makes life far easier.
Deal with situations promptly. If a kid is having a tantrum in public, warn them, then remove them. If you reward them with a phone and delay discipline till later, they won’t understand, and the behaviour will be repeated.
Set expectations for behaviour. Talk to them ahead of time. I have always told my kids how I expect them to act in a particular situation because they deserve to know what they’re getting into. Young kids are far smarter than we assume. They are often capable of rising to the occasion, if we’ve set them up for success.
Enact consequences. I am not a “gentle parent.” I believe that children thrive when kindly given firm and clear boundaries with reasonable consequences for disobedience. For example, I tell my children they’re not welcome at the table if they cannot act in a civilized manner. They must leave until they’re ready to behave properly. If that means they eat a cold dinner after the rest of us have finished, so be it.
Emphasize duty to others. A child’s behaviour should not inconvenience others, whether family or strangers. A well-functioning society relies on consideration for others, and children must learn to override their instincts to scream and yell out of politeness.
Provide alternatives. Have snacks and drinks on hand. Bring books, toys, sketch pads, and other analog forms of entertainment for a kid. Talk to them. Sing to them (depending on their age). Interact, lavish them with your attention, and watch them thrive.
I know parenting is the hardest job out there, and you have to pick your battles. But this is a fascinating example of how avoiding a battle, ie., giving a screen to a child in meltdorn, only ends up making your job far harder, because you’ll raise a kid who struggles to self-regulate in the future. Resist the urge now, reap the benefits later. You can do it. You’re not alone.
You Might Also Like:
Phones Make Us Worse Parents
It’s the Adults, Not the Kids!
Let Them Have Silence
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