GIVING children phones or iPads to calm a tantrum — like using a “digital dummy” — makes their behaviour worse, scientists warned.
They say the common tactic prevents kids from learning how to manage their emotions, leading to more anger and other “severe emotion regulation problems”.
Out of 265 under-fives monitored in a study, those who were calmed with digital devices had worse emotional control a year later.
They were more prone to anger outbursts and struggled to regulate their feelings, researchers claimed.
Ofcom figures show nearly 90 per cent of UK three to four-year-olds use the internet regularly, mostly to watch videos.
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A quarter of toddlers even have their own smartphone.
Study author Dr Veronika Konok, from Eotvos Lorand University, Hungary, said: “Tantrums cannot be cured by digital devices.
“Children have to learn how to manage their negative emotions for themselves.
“We show that if parents regularly offer a digital device to their child to calm them or to stop a tantrum, the child won’t learn.
“This leads to more severe emotion regulation problems, specifically anger management problems, later in life.
“They need the help of their parents during this learning process, not the help of a digital device.”
The study backs up the experience of teachers who say behaviour in schools is getting worse, particularly since the Covid lockdowns.
Union NASUWT said last year: “Concerns over the impact of violent and abusive pupil behaviour have been raised by a significant and increasing proportion of members.”
The study, in the journal Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, quizzed parents of kids aged around three in 2020 and again a year later.
It said the results were “consistent and strong in one direction”, with more frequent device use linked to anger, frustration and lower self-control.
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