Christin L. Porter

Research has consistently found that media emotion regulation processes are negatively related to several developmental outcomes in early childhood. Using longitudinal data from N = 451 children, we examined how the association between media emotion regulation processes and children’s problematic media use, internalizing and externalizing behaviors, and social-emotional functioning fluctuated across early and middle childhood, spanning from 2 to 9 years of age. Using a Time-Varying Effects Model (TVEM), we found evidence that the association between media emotion regulation and children’s development is not static across childhood and fluctuates across different ages and stages. Specifically, we identified windows of developmental sensitivity to media emotion regulation processes during early childhood in terms of internalizing and externalizing behaviors, and an increasing sensitivity to the effects of media emotion regulation on problematic media use across early childhood. These findings point to the need for developmentally-sensitive research approaches, interventions, and parenting practices around the use of technology to calm young children.

There is growing interest in how screen-based media is linked to young children's regulatory development. However, findings on the relationship between screen time and regulatory abilities remain mixed, highlighting the need to consider additional contextual factors (e.g., Barr, 2019). This study investigated whether screen time at age 2 predicted hot and cold executive functions (EFs) and language outcomes at age 4. It also tested whether these associations were moderated by parent-child coviewing behaviors and the type of media content children commonly consumed (educational vs. violent). Participants included 306 parent-child dyads (62% White, 22% Hispanic/Latino, 9% Black, 2% Asian, 5% mixed/other race), with 12% reporting an annual income below $20,000. Primary caregivers reported children's screen time at age 2 (M = 28.13 months, SD = 6.84), and children's EF and language were assessed at age 4 (M = 4.07 years, SD = 4.0 months) using standardized assessments (e.g., National Institutes of Health Toolbox Cognition Battery) and Kochanska's effortful control/EF tasks (i.e., Snack Delay, Whisper, Day/Night). Higher screen time at age 2 was associated with poorer performance on both hot and cold EF tasks and lower receptive vocabulary at age 4. Parent-child coviewing predicted better working memory, and higher exposure to educational content was linked to stronger EF and language outcomes. However, neither coviewing nor educational content moderated the effects of screen time on developmental outcomes over time. In contrast, higher exposure to violent content moderated children's attentional shifting performance. Overall, these findings suggest that early screen exposure-particularly to violent content-may negatively impact children's cognitive/regulatory development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Media has the potential to hinder children's language development if it disrupts or displaces parent‐child interactions. However, little research has examined the wider family media ecology and how this might relate to the home language environment during infancy and early childhood. The current research utilized a longitudinal study to examine associations between the family media ecology (joint media engagement, technoference, and child television screen time) and children's quantity of child talk and parent/child conversational turns. Participants included 250 families with children (Wave 1 M age = 15.85 months) who completed a number of questionnaires and observations around media and language at two time points approximately one year apart. Higher technoference was related to lower quantity of child talk at the first wave only, but children who had higher television screen time demonstrated lower quantity of child talk and experienced fewer conversational turns 1 year later. However, there was no significant association between joint media engagement or parental technoference on quantity of child talk or conversational turns over time. Reducing television screen time in early childhood may be one strategy to encourage quantity of child talk and to enhance the home language environment.

The purpose of this study was twofold, first, to examine potential changes in young children's media use starting a year prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and 2 years following onset (between 2½ and 4½ years of child age). Second, to examine links between children's screen time and their emerging regulatory functioning as indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). Participants (N = 269, 48% female at Wave 3) were drawn from Waves 3 to 5 of Project Media Effects on Development from Infancy to Adulthood, a longitudinal study on the impact of early media use on children's development. Parents reported children's time using media across different medium (e.g., television, tablets, book reading, smartphones). At Waves 3 and 5, children's baseline RSA was recorded in their homes. Results revealed an increase in nearly all forms of media during the first year of COVID-19 pandemic (W4) and decreases during year 2 (W5) with some but not all forms of media returning to W3 levels. A growth mixture model found two distinct classes of participants primarily across measures of socioeconomic status (SES). Higher levels of screen time pre-COVID-19 pandemic were linked to lower RSA 2 years later, regardless of SES. Protective factors were observed for children from lower SES families, including if they had higher income relative to other class members. Findings are framed in the context of displacement and polyvagal theory, suggesting that higher levels of media consumption early in life may displace opportunities that support children's emerging regulatory systems. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Cultural and historical contexts shape parenting practices, yet little is known about their variability in China pior to recent societal changes. This study uses historical data collected from 471 mothers and their preschool children in urban China before the early 21st century to examine parenting patterns and their co-occurring links to child behavior. We confirmed a multidimensional structure of parenting in this sample. Further, using latent profile analysis (LPA) with the mother–child dyad as the unit of analysis, we identified five profiles based on 11 mother-rated parenting dimensions and six teacher-rated child behaviors: (1) Balanced-Competent, (2) Traditional-Competent, (3) Controlling-Maladaptive, (4) Disengaged-Maladaptive, and (5) Inconsistent-Maladaptive. Complementing past, relatively uniform conceptualizations of historical Chinese socialization practices, these profiles represent culturally specific combinations of parenting and child adjustment. By applying a person-centered approach to historical data, this study provides a culturally grounded snapshot of Chinese parenting and child functioning around the turn of the century, offering a baseline for future comparison studies.

Using media to calm children, a practice commonly referred to as media emotion regulation, has been found to be associated with the development of executive functions in early childhood. Understanding the temporal ordering of these processes, i.e. if media emotion regulation practices shape executive functions or vice versa, can help guide the way parents and practitioners support health development. However, individual variability in the temporal ordering of these processes is likely. This study uses longitudinal data to examine the temporal ordering of the association between media emotion regulation and two facets of executive functions, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility in a sample of N = 87 children from ages 2 ½ to 7 ½. We found evidence of individual variability in the temporal ordering of the association between media emotion regulation practices and both inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility. A Gaussian Mixture Model identified three broad classes of temporal ordering; Media Emotion Regulation Driven (7.00%), Bidirectional (87.36%), and Diverging Temporal Ordering (6.00%). Parent depression when children were 2 ½ years old was negatively associated with the probability of children being classified in the Bidirectional class but was positively associated with the probability of children being classified in the Media Emotion Regulation Driven class. Although unable to establish causality in the association between media emotion regulation and the development of executive functions, these findings highlight the likelihood of individual differences in the temporal ordering of these effects and the role of family context in shaping those developmental processes.

Given the prevalence of mobile device use, especially among parents of young children, the current study examines the impact of mobile device distraction (technoference) on toddlers’ physiological and emotional functioning. We suspected that toddlers’ would demonstrate difficultly maintaining physiological and emotional homeostasis when parents became distracted by a mobile device. In this study, we examined toddlers’ (N = 129, M age = 29.05 months) physiological and behavioral responses across three conditions in an induced technoference task that mimicked elements of a traditional still face paradigm (i.e., social engagement, phone distraction, and social recovery). Similar to previous studies employing still face with younger infants, a majority of toddlers demonstrated a loss of positive affective tone mirrored by heart rate increase and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) decrease (vagal withdrawal) during the phone distraction condition relative to the initial and final social engagement conditions. However, some toddlers demonstrated vagal activation (RSA increase) to parents’ phone distraction. Greater RSA withdrawal was linked to decreased positive affect and increased negative affect for children during parents’ phone distraction. Parents who reported higher levels of technoference were more likely to have children who demonstrated lower vagal reactivity (greater vagal withdrawal) to parents’ phone distraction while parents attitudes about technoference (e.g., “it is okay to use a mobile device in front of my child”) was found to be linked to higher RSA reactivity (greater vagal activation). Findings are discussed in relation to Porges’ polyvagal theory and the possible role that interactive dynamics play in children's emerging regulatory systems.

Parents play an important role in socializing children's emotion understanding. Previous research shows that parents emphasize different aspects of emotion contexts depending on the discrete emotion. However, there is limited research on how parents and children discuss self-conscious emotions, such as embarrassment, guilt, and shame, and what socialization practices parents employ to elicit children's talk about these emotions. In this study, children (N = 166, 78 females, 88 males) ages 2-3 years (M = 2.46, SD = 0.26) and their parents (65.5% White, 10.2% Black, 17.5% Hispanic, 2.4% Asian American, and 5.4% other) from a large city in the Western United States discussed a wordless storybook depicting different female and male characters experiencing self-conscious emotions (embarrassment, guilt, shame, awe, and pride). Parents' and children's emotion talk and parents' questions were coded from their conversations about each emotion scenario and subsequently analyzed by discrete emotion, child gender, and the depicted character's gender. Parents and children differentially focused on different aspects of each self-conscious emotion as a function of discrete emotion and picture gender, and elements of children's talk about self-conscious emotions were related to children's expressive language and age. Additionally, parents' emotion talk and questions about emotions were directly related to children's emotion talk, even after controlling for children's age, expressive language, and parental education. Taken together, these findings suggest that parent-child emotion conversations may be one context that facilitates the development of children's understanding of self-conscious emotions.