Examining the association between mothers’ life logistics and screen time of children aged 4 – 5 years old

The recent proliferation of mobile technology has dramatically changed the media landscape experienced by today’s preschool children, which presents an opportunity to re-appraise the predictors of screen time for children in this age group. Previous research conducted by Beyens and Eggermont has shown mothers’ life logistics to be longitudinally predictive of one- to fouryear-old children’s hours of TV viewing. Their Observed Life Logistics Model indicated that mothers’ work hours, mediated by mothers’ work-life balance and well-being, indirectly predicted hours of children’s TV viewing. We used SEM and employed a comprehensive measure of screen time to re-examine this model using a large, nationally representative cohort of New Zealand children (n > 5000) aged between four and five years. We found that mothers’ life logistics were not associated with preschool children’s screen time, although we did find a significant but small negative effect of mothers’ hours of work on children’s screen time. Surprisingly, although employed as a control variable, ethnicity emerged as the strongest predictor of screen time for children in our sample. Children with more symptoms of inattention/hyperactivity tended to have higher screen time and children who attended childcare regularly tended to have marginally lower screen time. Most importantly, we found four modifiable media parenting practices that were associated with preschool children’s screen time: allowing meals in front of TV and level of TV exposure provided to the child (background and foreground) were positively associated; having rules restricting screen time and reading to the child on a daily basis were negatively associated. As screen technologies become ever-more present in family life, these particular findings about modifiable media parenting practices may be useful to parents wishing to reduce their children’s screen time or maintain it at levels they consider appropriate for their child.