Pacifying children by handing them digital devices when they are throwing tantrums can disable them from managing emotions later in life, which can grow into anger management issues, research has found.
Conversely, parents of children, who already had poor emotional control, were found to be overly relying on electronic devices to silence them, worsening the pre-existing conditions.
It is known that a child learns much about self-control, including how to choose a deliberate response over an automatic one, during the first few years of their life.
Following 300 parents of children — aged two to five years old over one year — the researchers found that children, who were pacified using digital devices.
showed poorer anger and frustration management skills. Parents were asked to respond to questionnaires that assessed how they and their children used media.
Conversely, the team also found that poorer behavior control in a child meant parents resorting to digital devices more often as a management tool.
The more the children were given devices when they threw tantrums, the less they were seen to make a deliberate effort to control their behavior, the authors found.