The Effect of Household Screen Media Experience on Young Children’s Emotion Regulation: The Mediating Role of Parenting Stress

In the current digital era, it has become a prevalent phenomenon for young children to engage with new media, while parenting stress has emerged as an increasingly prominent issue. However, there remains a dearth of research examining the interplay between household screen media experience, emotion regulation abilities, and parenting stress. Thus this study aimed to investigate the relationships among them to address this research gap. Specifically, we explored the mediating role of family parenting stress between young children’s household screen media experience and emotion regulation skills. Three hundred and seventy 4-year-old children finished the household screen media experience questionnaire, the choice of emotional regulation strategies, and their parents’ parenting stress. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS 23.0 and Amos 24.0 software. The results show that: 1) household screen media experience is significantly positively correlated with the three dimensions of parenting stress and negatively correlated with the three dimensions of emotion regulation strategies. 2) Parenting stress plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between household screen media experience and negative emotion regulation strategies. 3) Childcare stress and difficult children have a significant partial mediating effect on the relationship between household screen media experience and passive coping. Difficult children have a significant partial mediating effect on the relationship between household screen media experience and emotional outbursts. Dysfunctional parent-child interaction has a significant partial mediating effect on the relationship between household screen media experience and aggressive behavior.