Preschoolers, Parents, and the Pandemic: Family Media Use During the COVID-19 Crisis and Child Development

During the COVID-19 pandemic, most families faced unprecedented disruptions to their daily routines. We had the opportunity to study media use by preschoolers and their parents during the pandemic when lockdown protocols interrupted an in-progress research project. In this chapter, we describe child and parent media habits and their consequences on early childhood during this sensitive period. First, we summarize how family distress (i.e., parenting stress, family income) and parent use of strategies to mediate child screen time (i.e., restrictive, co-viewing or instructive) contribute to heavy media use in children. Second, we present evidence that child and parent media habits may influence child temperament and global development. Our results help identify risk and protective factors associated with family media habits and indicate increased media use during the pandemic may have placed children at risk of poor bio-psycho-social outcomes. Practical implications for research, families, and professionals are discussed.