Parents putting screens in front of their kids is more about their own stress than other factors

It is 6 p.m. after a full workday. A tired parent is trying to prepare dinner and clean up the kitchen before their children’s evening routine implodes. A minor disagreement between the children quickly escalates into shouting and shoving.

The parent also suddenly remembers an email from their supervisor about an upcoming deadline. Quiet and a sense of control is an arm’s reach away. All the parent has to do is place a tablet in each child’s hands, knowing it will quickly stop their fighting.

I am a doctoral student of child and adolescent clinical psychology. My new research suggests that whether a parent reaches for the tablet during stressful moments depends less on the child’s behavior and more on the adult’s ability to cope with the stress of a particular situation.

Parenting stress and screen time

Screens have become an almost integral part of childhood and parenting. Nearly all U.S. children use or view screens every day, and 42% of children ages 2 to 4 have their own tablets.

The American Pediatric Association offers different screentime recommendations for children depending on their age. The organization recommends that parents not allow children ages 18 months to 2 years to use media by themselves and that they limit media use among children 2 to 5 to less than one hour per day.

Most young children do not meet these recommendations.

It is no surprise, then, that managing children’s screen use can be very stressful for parents.

Parenting a child comes with unique stressors, from small daily hassles like getting kids out the door on time for school to the bigger assignment of raising a functioning, happy and healthy human. These particular stressors that come with the job are what researchers call parenting stress.

Nearly 70% of parents in a 2020 national survey said that managing their child’s technology and social media use is a primary source of their parenting stress.

While research on children’s screen use is growing, most of it has focused on how a child’s behavior and temperament influence how much time they spend on screens.

Yet far less attention has gone to parents’ role in children’s media use.

In 2024, the U.S. surgeon general identified parenting stress as a public health concern.

Researchers, clinicians and policymakers were called to action to better understand parents’ needs, with the goal of supporting them in raising children and maintaining a healthy family.

The study’s focus

Every day, caregivers make big and small decisions about their child’s media and screen use.

Researchers call these screen media parenting strategies. For example, caregivers may decide that kids can use a smartphone or tablet to speak with other family members or while they are traveling. Caregivers also often place time limits on how long their child can spend on screens each day or week.

My 2025 research set out to test parents’ stress in relation to their screen media parenting strategies.

In an online nationwide survey of 822 parents of children ages 4 to 8, the adults rated their levels of parenting stress, their child’s behavior problems and how they managed their child’s screen use. This includes how consistently they set limits around screen time and how often they used screens to help manage their child’s behavior.

We looked at three distinct types of parenting stress: the stress parents feel of their own accord; the stress parents feel because of their relationship with their child; and the stress parents experience because their child’s behavior is difficult to manage.

Our findings suggest that parents who experienced high levels of stress because of their own personal struggles and experiences in life set fewer limits for their child’s screen use, regardless of their child’s behavior.

Parents who experienced stress because of their child’s temperament or challenging behavior were also more likely to hand over a screen to manage or avoid their child’s behavior.

Finally, parents who felt stress because of their parent-child relationship were not more likely to give their child a screen.

Our findings held true even after we accounted for the child’s actual behavior in our analysis. In other words, it wasn’t just how the child was acting, but how hard the caregiver felt it was to deal with the child’s behavior at a particular time.

Transition into the new school year

Most families will likely experience some stress as they launch into the busy routines of a new school year.

Some caregivers might find it helpful to create an action plan to support their well-being and their family’s screen media routines.

Specifically, they can create a family media plan, deciding whether to implement screen-free zones or times each day, for example. Or they can set other limits, like no screens at the dinner table or before bed.

Parents can also limit what online apps and programs their children can use.

Where possible, children can be involved in helping to develop the family media plan.

Together, these strategies can support the next 6 p.m. moment when dinner isn’t ready and the noise won’t stop.

Instead of scrambling to make a decision in the moment, a decision made proactively, at a calmer time, can support the entire family.