No abstract

In the present study we propose a model linking parental perceptions of technology to technology-related parenting strategies to youth screen time, and, finally, to internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors. Participants were 615 parents drawn from three community samples of families with children across three developmental stages: young childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence. The model was tested at each stage with the strongest support emerging in the young childhood sample. One component of parental perceptions of technology, perceived efficacy, was related to technology-related parenting strategies across developmental stages. However, the association of these strategies to child screen time and, in turn, problem behaviors, diminished as children increased in age. Implications for intervention are considered.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of the current study was to examine the indirect effect of youth screen time (e.g., television, computers, smartphones, video games, and tablets) on behavioral health problems (i.e., internalizing, externalizing, and peer problems) through sleep duration and disturbances. METHODS We assessed a community sample of parents with a child in one of three developmental stages: young childhood (3 – 7 yrs.; N = 209), middle childhood (8 – 12 yrs.; N = 202), and adolescence (13 – 17 yrs.; N = 210). Path analysis was employed to test the hypothesized indirect effect model. RESULTS Findings indicated that, regardless of the developmental stage of the youth, higher levels of youth screen time were associated with more sleep disturbances, which, in turn, were linked to higher levels of youth behavioral health problems. CONCLUSION Children who have increased screen time are more likely to have poor sleep quality and problem behaviors.

A burgeoning literature supports the role of autonomic nervous system (ANS) functioning as an index of physiologic sensitivity to the environment, but extant research is limited in its focus on single branches of the ANS, childhood samples, and solely negative environmental factors. This study seeks to address these limitations by exploring whether reactivity in the parasympathetic (PNS) and sympathetic (SNS) nervous systems jointly moderate the prospective contributions of both positive (maternal involvement) and negative (maternal psychological control) aspects of the family environment to developmentally relevant outcomes in adolescence (depressive symptoms and emotion regulation). At Wave 1, adolescents (n = 352, 52% female, M age = 15.27, SD = 1.04; 65% White) and their parents completed a problem-solving discussion task, during which adolescent ANS activation was continuously monitored, and reports of maternal involvement, maternal psychological control, adolescent depressive symptoms, and adolescent emotion regulation were obtained. Adolescent depressive symptoms and emotion regulation were assessed again 1 year later (Wave 2). Results indicated that PNS and SNS reactivity jointly moderated the prospective contributions of maternal involvement and maternal psychological control to depressive symptoms and emotion regulation. Specifically, adolescents who exhibited reciprocal SNS activation appeared to be most sensitive to both positive and negative parenting environments. Adolescents exhibiting coinhibition or coactivation profiles of autonomic reactivity were comparatively unreactive to parenting. This study corroborates the notion that consideration of multiple physiological systems is critical to our understanding of biological processes in the development of emotional functioning in adolescence. (PsycINFO Database Record