Parenting styles and young children’s problem behaviours: the mediating role of electronic media usage

ABSTRACT

To explore the relationships among parenting styles, children’s electronic media usage (EMU) and children’s problem behaviours (CPB), 1,224 preschoolers aged 3–6 years old (52.0% boys; 30.9% aged 3 years old, 34.6% aged 4 years old, 26.1% aged 5 years old, and 8.4% aged 6 years old) and their parents were enrolled in the present study by means of a questionnaire administered as an online survey, with the primary caregivers completing the questionnaires regarding parenting styles, strengths and difficulties, and time their preschoolers spent using electronic media. The results indicated that there is a significant two-by-two correlation among the three variables. The authoritative parenting style significantly and negatively predicted recreational e-activities (REA) and CPB and significantly and positively predicted educational e-activities (EEA). The authoritarian parenting style significantly and positively predicted REA and CPB and significantly and negatively predicted EEA. A further bootstrap test indicated that children's EMU partially mediated the relationship between parenting styles and CPB.

KEYWORDS:

• Parenting styles
• problem behaviours
• electronic media usage
• mediating role
• young children

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

As this study is a topic being led by the first author, the datasets generated and/or analyzed in the study are currently not publicly available, and this study is part of the topic but is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee (20230306) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Author’s note

We are grateful to all the children and parents who participated in this study. We have no conflicts of interest to disclose. We confirm that appropriate consideration has been made to protect intellectual property rights related to this work. There are no known obstacles to this publication in terms of intellectual property rights and publication time. Nevertheless, we confirm that any experimental work involving animals or human patients in this manuscript is conducted under ethical approval from all relevant institutions. In addition, this study was approved by Faculty of Education, Northeast Normal University. The authors contribute as follows: Conceptualization, Z.Y. and J.R.; methodology, Z.Y. and J.R.; software, J.R.; validation, Z.Y., W.L. and J.R.; formal analysis, Z.Y. and J.R.; investigation, Z.Y., J.R., Q.M. and Y.Q.; data curation, Z.Y. and J.R.; writing – original draft preparation, Z.Y., W.L. and J.R.; writing – review and editing, Z.Y., and W.L.; visualization, Z.Y. and W.L.; supervision, Z.Y. and W.L.; project administration, Z.Y.; funding acquisition, Z.Y. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the National Social Science Foundation of China [grant number 19BSH049].

Notes on contributors

Zhonglian Yan

Zhonglian Yan is a professor, doctoral supervisor, and Head of the Preschool Education Discipline at Northeast Normal University in China. His research areas include community child services, rural preschool education, early care, and curriculum theory.

Wenqi Lin

Wenqi Lin is a PHD candidate in the Faculty of Education, Northeast Normal University. Her research interests include early childhood education and development, parenting, person-environment interactions, and the development of disadvantaged individuals.

Jing Ren

Jing Ren is a kindergarten teacher working at Dalian Development Zone First Kindergarten, and her research interests focus on preschool child development and education.

Qinglin Ma

Qinglin Ma is the deputy director of the Qingyun County Education and Sports Bureau, and his area of research is family education and child development.

Yanling Qin

Yanling Qin is the director of Guilin Qixing Kindergarten, and her research area is sustainable kindergarten development and preschool children's education.