Previously submitted to: JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting (no longer under consideration since Aug 24, 2026)
Date Submitted: Feb 1, 2026
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Parental perspectives about development outcomes of young children’s screen use and their strategies for managing screen use within family contexts: A qualitative study
ABSTRACT
Background:
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Objective:
The primary aims of this study were to explore within a family context: 1) parental perspectives on developmental outcomes of young children’s screen use, 2) family screen use practices, including purposes of use and strategies employed to manage screen use, and 3) how parental perspectives influence strategies used to manage screen use. The secondary aim of the study was to explore what informs family screen use practices, including how parents would like to access information about screen use for their family.
Methods:
Methods:
Fifty-seven prenatal and infant parents, from the ORIGINS cohort, completed a semi-structured interview. Inductive thematic analysis was completed using NVivo.
Results:
Results:
Participants described perspectives that screen use can both hinder and enhance child development, with parents in the prenatal stage and those with one child indicating more concerns regarding the developmental outcomes of screen use than parents in the infant stage and those with multiple children. Participants also described a variety of different parent- ,child- and family-focused purposes of screen use and strategies to manage screen use. Strategies used seemed to be informed by participants’ own experiences and recommendations from others, rather than by reported perspectives.
Conclusions:
Conclusion: Despite holding varied perspectives regarding developmental outcomes of children’s screen use, these do not appear to influence strategies that parents employ to manage family screen use. Interventions to support beneficial screen use by young children could usefully focus on supporting parent practices directly, rather than aiming to influence practices by influencing parents’ perspectives on the developmental implications of screen use by children. Clinical Trial: -
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