Preschool children's screen time during the COVID-19 pandemic: associations with family characteristics and children's anxiety/withdrawal and approaches to learning.

With schools closed due to the COVID-19, many children have been exposed to media devices for learning and entertainment, raising concerns over excessive screen time for young children. The current study examined how preschoolers' screen time was associated with their family characteristics and anxiety/withdrawal and approaches to learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were 764 caregivers of 3- to 6-year-old children (mean age = 59.07 months, SD = 12.28 months; 403 boys and 361 girls) from nine preschools in Wuhan, China, where the pandemic started. The effects of family characteristics on children's screen time during the pandemic outbreak and the associations between screen time and children's anxiety/withdrawal and approaches to learning were examined using path analysis. The results showed that children who spent more time on interactive screen use (e.g., playing with tablets) showed higher levels of anxiety/withdrawal and fewer positive learning behaviors. Unexpectedly, children who spent more time on noninteractive screen use (e.g., watching TV) showed lower levels of anxiety/withdrawal. Additionally, children's screen time was related to family characteristics: children living in more chaotic families with fewer screen time restrictions spent more time on screen use after the pandemic outbreak. The findings suggest that young children's frequent use of interactive screens, such as tablets and smartphones, might be harmful to their learning and wellbeing during the pandemic. To mitigate the potential negative effects, it is essential to manage the screen time of preschoolers by establishing rules for their interactive screen use and improving the household routines related to the overall screen use.

Preschoolers' Approaches to Learning and Family-school Connections During COVID-19: An Empirical Study Based on a Wuhan Sample.

The concept, approaches to learning (ATL), is an important dimension of children's school readiness, which reflects children's enthusiasm and engagement in learning settings. Due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), when preschools were shut down for months and children's social interactions were greatly limited, preschoolers' ATL might be negatively affected. However, strengthened family-school connections might have the potential to reduce the adverse effects of the pandemic. Based on a sample of 340 preschoolers from 30 classes of 6 preschools in Wuhan, China, we explored the association between family-preschool connections and preschoolers' ATL scores. The findings showed that the preschoolers' ATL were statistically and positively associated with parental attendance at the online parent-teacher meetings initiated by the preschools (standardized coefficient = 0.15). Policy implications regarding the enhancement of family-preschool connections are discussed. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10643-021-01217-x.