Distracted Parenting - PHAC Resource
Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash
The Saskatchewan Prevention Institute hosted a recent webinar, Distracted Parenting: Phones as Both a Support and Hindrance to Parenting and Potential Impacts on Children, exploring what phone use means for parenting and early child development.
The webinar, hosted by the Saskatchewan Nobody’s Perfect Program, was presented by Dr. Brandon McDaniel, who works in Human Development and Family Studies, Pennsylvania State University. Dr. McDaniel is a research scientist at the Parkview Mirro Center for Research and Innovation and is an adjunct clinical assistant professor of Pediatrics at Indiana School of Medicine. His area of expertise is on the impacts of technology use on relationships, families, and children.
The webinar explored what phone use means for parenting and early child development. Dr. McDaniel talked about parents’ experiences with and feelings about their phones and presented actionable strategies for avoiding the potential pitfalls of phone overuse, while maintaining happier family and parent-child relationships. He noted, “the ways in which technology has become integrated into our lives and interacts with our sense of wellbeing make it critical for us to be thinking about, both in our work with families and in our own lives”. He made the following points:
Why should we care?
Parent responsiveness, warmth, concern, and involvement are linked with child outcomes over time in the areas of:
Friendliness
Cooperation with parents
Better control of emotions
Strength of bond to parent
Academic achievement
Resilience to stress
How one feels about oneself
Young children especially need:
Sensitivity: being aware of child needs, interpreting cues correctly, and responding contingently (in a timely manner) and appropriately to these signals (what the child needs in that moment)
Interactional synchrony: fit between parent and child behaviour (e.g., a parent who is good at this skill is good at reading a child’s emotions and responding appropriately – an appropriate back and forth, neither withdrawn nor overwhelming.)
Modern parenting is quite complex. In terms of device use there will be occasions of:
Prioritizing device use over interaction (e.g., focus playing a game independently while holding an infant – restricted eye contact/engagement with the child)
Simultaneous device use by each person in a social setting
Shared use of a device (e.g., reading a story with children while cuddling together)
Interactions that are device-free (e.g., shared outdoor play)
The deep integration of technology into our lives has created an “always on” environment:
97% of adults own a cellphone
85% own a smartphone
90% say phone is frequently with them
83% never or rarely turn their phone off
26% go online “almost constantly”
Per day, the average person:
Checks their phone 50 or more times
Uses phone twice as often as they think they do
Spends 5 hours or more on their phone
Checks their phone within 5 minutes of waking up
The proliferation of technology has led many adults to express growing attachment to their phone. Many express:
Using phone too much
Feeling lost without phone
Experiencing discomfort when they have to disconnect
Trouble resisting urge to check device
Anxiety over messages might receive
Fear of missing out if they don’t check their device
Phantom vibrations, etc.
In his compassionate presentation, Dr. McDaniel explored the question of what that means for parenting, acknowledging that it is a complex issue. Phone/tech use during parenting can support or hinder parenting; it depends on how, when, and why used. It can also do both simultaneously.
Dr. McDaniel outlined multiple ways in which phone use can support parenting, such as:
giving opportunity to calm down when under stress (emotion regulation/escape)
finding support for parenting (either through time-management, planning, parenting/nutrition/health advice or inter-personal support)
enabling parents to be more ‘fun’/lighthearted in their parenting approach.
On the negative side, he noted, problematic habits and everyday use full of beeps and buzzes can lead to “technoference” (technology interference), defined as everyday intrusions or interruptions in interactions or time spent together that occur due to technology. These everyday intrusions from technology can be quite common and demanding of prioritization, intruding on the flow of face-to-face interaction with children and partners. People often are unaware of how frequently these interruptions occur.
In an interview study with 1,000 children ages 4 to 18 about parents’ mobile device use, children repeatedly used words such as “sad”, “mad”, “angry”, “lonely”. A quote from one of the interviewees stated, “I feel like I’m just boring. I’m boring my dad because he will take any text, any call, anytime…”
Dr. McDaniel noted that parents often think that children don’t notice the distraction, but even very young children are very aware and attuned to emotional withdrawal of the parent, leading to increased bids for attention and negative behaviours (both acting out and withdrawal). Longitudinal studies have indicated that parental stress increases withdrawal into devices with children reacting with an increase of attention-seeking behaviours, building a cyclical pattern.
The research indicates that parent phone use likely impacts all aspects of sensitivity, with distractions making them less aware of cues, more likely to misinterpret cues, delayed (or missing) response, or inappropriate response, which can start to impact relational bonds and future expectations of how relationships work. Dr. McDaniel drew illustrations from several studies.
Observational studies at restaurants have shown the prevalence of phone engagement by parents, with the higher the device absorption the less in-person conversation and sometimes harsh parenting responses. The times when caregivers were on their device, they were less responsive to the children and showed less positivity than when they were not using a device.
In playground studies, when a child tried to get attention of the caregiver who was using the phone, more than half of caregivers never responded at all to the child’s attempts to get their attention while they were on the phone. This was significantly more prevalent than when caregivers with distracted in some other way (reading/interacting with other caregivers onsite).
Phone use tends to mean fewer words spoken directly to the child, which can negatively influence language development.
Studies of media use during infant feeding has had conflicting results and are not necessarily associated with worse attachment. Many parents felt the use helped them to cope better and reduce impatience/frustration and that it improved their feelings about parenting their child.
Dr. McDaniel noted that parents are often aware of the situation. There are times when it is a huge distraction. There are guilty feelings about teaching bad habits or losing opportunities for connection with their child. They express complex/conflicted feelings with acknowledgement that phone use is embedded in their life and parenting, that it can help them to relax, seek information, connect with friends and family, that they may need to use the device for work/scheduling/organization, and that they may turn to the phone to regulate emotions, but that there are feelings of guilt attached to phone use during time with their child.
He stressed that parents generally desire to be “present” when around their children. Over 80% express the desire to change their phone habits, yet almost all of those express moderate to high difficulty with actually changing/controlling their use. It is not easy to advise on or rectify this situation. Interestingly, the desire to change is not directly connected to quantity of use of devices, but rather to awareness and perceptions of use. There is admission of the addictive pull of technology use which is so integrated into everyday life in our culture, the unconscious urge to reach for the device throughout the day. It is not easy to change and it is difficult to “learn how to use my phone as a tool instead of letting my phone use me”.
He offered suggestions of what we can do to help parents:
Most importantly, not coming at it from a “phone use is bad” perspective! There is so much meaning and worth and attachment that people have from using their device, connected to the “why” and “how” people make use of devices and how use is connected to lifestyle/connection to culture/community.
First, seek to understand the parent and how the phone use fits into their life/parenting.
Help parents build awareness of supportive uses they make of their device, uses they are unhappy with, and ways device use may impact their mental health/feelings.
In Dr. McDaniel’s team’s work with high-risk new mothers in home visits, responses to this approach have shown that the approach led to new learning, and that the new mothers felt that talking about their tech habits was valuable, were glad to have talked about their tech habits, and that they were paying more attention to their phone use as a result. He suggested that, to work towards creating healthier caregiving environments for children, we can help parents recognize what they do and don’t like about their phone use.
He offered the following practical tips for those working with parents:
Remember device use often serves a purpose or fulfills a need and be aware that this is a very difficult behaviour to change.
Work with parents to recognize how they might accomplish the task or fulfill the need using a more effective strategy.
Help parents set up clear boundaries by exploring the patterns of use/triggers.
Help parents understand the “why” behind caring about their device use.
Guiding Questions:
At what times/how often do I use tech throughout the day?
Is most of my use supporting me?
What is “driving” me to check/respond to my tech
How do I feel during/after use?
Is my tech use changing/replacing parts of my life that were going well before?
Do I make more eye contact with my phone than my children/spouse/partner?
Parents can view their use on Android Digital Well-being or Apple Screentime to see what their actual usage patterns are.