Research
New report links mother’s stress, children’s screen time and behavioural development
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Freya Lucas
Oct 24, 2024
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A new study has explored the differences in New Zealand children’s behavioural outcomes between high- and low-income families, finding that both mothers’ stress and children’s screen time are both factors that explain part of the association between income and reports of children’s behaviour problems.
New Zealand children in higher income families, the study found, had fewer reported behavioural problems than children in lower-income households, even once socio-demographic and parenting differences were accounted for.The report - The effect of income on New Zealand children's behaviour: The influence of maternal stress and children's screen use - used data from the Growing Up in New Zealand study, and found that higher levels of screen time - four hours or more per day - led to pre-school children ‘playing up’ and that could not be explained by socio-economic differences."When you're looking at families, you can't really separate out this role of income and stress - they are very related," Motu Research fellow Dr Jaimie Monk shared during a radio interview (linked mid piece here).
"We found that ... periods when income was higher, stress was lower - which is probably reasonably logical..."
The biggest reasons for differences in children's development were related to housing and health, she continued, noting that whether the mothers owned or rented the homes their children were living in, and how often the children needed to move were factors which impacted children’s outcomes.
This depended on whether their mothers owned the home or were renting - and how often they were having to move, "which is obviously quite a stressful thing that happens if you're pregnant".
Researchers also looked deeper into the factors behind differences in behaviour issues between income groups.
"What's most important for children at this particular stage of their development is ... all to do with this parent-child relationship, so back and forth interactions between parents and children - these are often known as 'serve and return interactions' - and these are what build healthy brain development for pre-school children," Dr Monk emphasised.
What is the tipping point?
Researchers emphasised that when it comes to determining the right amount of screentime to alleviate parental stress without being detrimental to children’s development and growth, it can be hard to find a definitive ‘line’.
"Screen use is a complicated thing... We do need to take ... stress into account when we're looking at it…,” Dr Monk said.
"At these lower levels - particularly if parents are parenting by themselves, without a lot of support and they're feeling stressed, and they feel like a small amount of screen use is giving them a break to cook dinner, or just to take some time out - I can't see that as being a particularly big issue.”
It is the higher levels of screen time use, she said, which become problematic. Four, five, six or seven hours a day of screens, she argues, can ‘crowd out’ healthy development.
"I would actually encourage parents... if your kid wants to watch Bluey for 30 minutes to give you a break, and you can feel better, and be more engaged in your parenting afterwards, then that's great.”
Complex range of factors
For many of the families involved in the study, there were a multitude of factors that were interrelated, and which contributed to the amount of screentime in a child’s day.
"I think a lot of these families have a lot of things going on, and there are a lot of these ... structural issues happening for them,” Dr Monk said.
"What this work shows is that income is important, but listing incomes is a complicated business.”
"If we can also take a lens to look at stress, and if we're developing social services that support families, we can actually think carefully about is this service helping decrease stress for families? And if it is, then that's going to have ongoing benefits for children, particularly for pre-school children."
Dr Monk’s comments were shared in a radio interview, which is linked in this piece from RNZ.
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