Young children’s digital media use and physical activity have gained attention in recent research. Parental co-participation has a major impact on children’s health consequences. This study addressed a gap in the research by investigating daily parental co-participation in children’s digital media use and physical play, using the family ecological model theoretical framework. The participants in this nationally representative cross-sectional study were 2512 Finnish parents with two- to six-year-old children. Parents completed a questionnaire. Sociodemographic correlates of co-participation and of the awareness of guidelines regarding co-participation and correlation between co-participation in digital media use and physical play were analysed. Parental co-participation in physical play and digital media use correlated positively. Lower parental age, male parental gender, Finnish and Swedish languages, a fewer number of children, and a male child gender were associated with more co-participation in one or both activities, and parental female gender and low family income were associated with more awareness. The awareness of guidelines was not associated with co-participation in digital media use. There were sociodemographic differences in parental co-participation. From a health counselling perspective, parents may benefit from national recommendations on digital media use and physical activity, but adherence to guidelines depends on the family context.

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The main purpose of the research was to describe the daily screen media habits and non-screen media habits like indoor and outdoor play, and sleep of preschool children aged 2 to 6 years from Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Finland using a content-validated online questionnaire (SMALLQ®) and unsupervised cluster analysis. Unsupervised cluster analysis on 5809 parent-reported weekday and weekend screen and non-screen media habits of preschool children from the four countries resulted in seven emergent clusters. Cluster 2 ( n = 1288) or the Early-screen media, screen media-lite and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity-lite family made up 22.2% and Cluster 1 ( n = 261) or the High-all-round activity and screen media-late family made up 4.5%, respectively represented the largest and smallest clusters among the seven clusters that were emergent from the pooled dataset. Finland was best represented by Cluster 2 and Japan was best represented by Cluster 3 ( High-screen media-for-entertainment and low-engagement family). Parents from Finland and Japan displayed greater homogeneity in terms of the screen media and non-screen media habits of preschool children than the parents from South Korea and Singapore. South Korea was best represented by Clusters 6 ( Screen media-physical activity-engagement hands-off family) and 7 ( Screen media-lite, screen media-late and high-physical activity family). Singapore was best represented by Clusters 4, 5, 6 and 7, and these clusters ranged from Low all-round activity-high nap time family to Screen media-lite, screen media-late and high-physical activity family. Future research should explore in-depth reasons for the across-country and within-country cluster characteristics of screen media and non-screen media habits among preschool children to allow for more targeted interventions.