Parental Control, Nurturance, Self-Efficacy, and Screen Viewing among 5- to 6-Year-Old Children: A Cross-Sectional Mediation Analysis To Inform Potential Behavior Change Strategies

Abstract

Background: Children's screen viewing (SV) is associated with higher levels of childhood obesity. Many children exceed the American Academy of Pediatrics guideline of 2 hours of television (TV) per day. There is limited information about how parenting styles and parental self-efficacy to limit child screen time are associated with children's SV. This study examined whether parenting styles were associated with the SV of young children and whether any effects were mediated by parental self-efficacy to limit screen time.Methods: Data were from a cross-sectional survey conducted in 2013. Child and parent SV were reported by a parent, who also provided information about their parenting practices and self-efficacy to restrict SV. A four-step regression method examined whether parenting styles were associated with the SV of young children. Mediation by parental self-efficacy to limit screen time was examined using indirect effects.Results: On a weekday, 90% of children watched TV for <2 hours per day, decreasing to 55% for boys and 58% for girls at weekends. At the weekend, 75% of children used a personal computer at home, compared with 61% during the week. Self-reported parental control, but not nurturance, was associated with children's TV viewing. Parental self-efficacy to limit screen time was independently associated with child weekday TV viewing and mediated associations between parental control and SV.Conclusions: Parental control was associated with lower levels of SV among 5- to 6-year-old children. This association was partially mediated by parental self-efficacy to limit screen time. The development of strategies to increase parental self-efficacy to limit screen-time may be useful.

Executive function and screen‐based media use in preschool children

“…An overview of screenbased media use in our sample suggests that TV outweighs all the other screen-based media devices. The amount of time spent watching TV is comparable to that reported elsewhere (Jago, Wood, Zahra, Thompson, & Sebire, 2015), as is the case with the amount of time spent using computers (Veldhuis, van Grieken, Renders, HiraSing, & Raat, 2014). However, children in our study used mobile screen media devices somewhat less than those reported by other authors (Kabali et al, 2015).…”

Parental strategies restricting screen use among children, screen home environment, and child screen use as predictors of child body fat: A prospective parent–child study

“…Measurement of parental restrictions in the present study might capture a broader range of strategies, relying on control. Careful discrimination between various control-based strategies used by parents is essential to clarify potential measurement-related sources of discrepancies in findings on parental control-based strategies (including restrictions) and screen time (Jago et al, 2015;Sleddens et al, 2017). Parental restrictions and screen use were measured at the same time point, hence the order in which these variables operate could not be established and requires further research.…”

“…Qualitative studies accounting for child and parental perceptions of parental practices confirmed that parental factors (including parental behaviours, practices, and perceptions) may determine screen use in youth (for review, see Minges et al, 2015). Importantly, the majority of quantitative research investigating links between parental practices and child sedentary behaviours focused on parental perceptions of parental practices, whereas child perceptions of parental practices were not accounted for (Jago, Wood, Zahra, Thompson, & Sebire, 2015;Lloyd, Lubans, Plotnikoff, Collins, & Morgan, 2014;Solomon-Moore et al, 2017).…”

“…To date, a limited number of studies focused on parental restriction strategies and child sedentary behaviours, whereas there is more evidence for relationships between parental restriction strategies and child food intake. Cross-sectional research (Jago et al, 2015) showed that parental reports on controlling various behaviours of primary school children were related to a lower screen use among children. Sleddens et al (2017) showed that parental restrictions of screen use (as reported by parents) predicted higher levels of screen use in children (as reported by parents at a 2-year follow-up) and were related to a higher body mass among children.…”

“…To date, a limited number of studies focused on parental restriction strategies and child sedentary behaviours, whereas there is more evidence for relationships between parental restriction strategies and child food intake. Cross‐sectional research (Jago et al ., ) showed that parental reports on controlling various behaviours of primary school children were related to a lower screen use among children. Sleddens et al .…”