Parental Nighttime Smartphone Soothing Practices and Delayed Emotional Self-Regulation Among Preschool Children Attending Urban Clinics
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Background: Smartphones are increasingly used by caregivers to calm preschool children during bedtime routines, but repeated reliance on screen-based soothing may reduce opportunities for caregiver-led co-regulation and adaptive emotional coping. Objective: To examine the association between parental nighttime smartphone-based soothing practices and emotional dysregulation among preschool-aged children attending urban outpatient clinics. Methods: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted from August to November 2025 in pediatric and family medicine outpatient clinics in the Islamabad–Rawalpindi region. Seventy-eight parent–child pairs involving children aged 3–5 years were recruited through consecutive sampling. Nighttime smartphone soothing frequency and duration were assessed using a structured interviewer-administered questionnaire, and emotional dysregulation was measured using the Emotion Regulation Checklist dysregulation component. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 26.0. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, independent-samples t-tests, and one-way ANOVA were applied, with p<0.05 considered statistically significant. Results: The mean child age was 4.2 ± 0.8 years, and 44 children (56.4%) were male. Daily nighttime smartphone soothing was reported in 36 children (46.2%). Mean ERC dysregulation scores increased progressively from 22.1 ± 4.8 among children exposed for less than 15 minutes to 33.4 ± 5.2 among those exposed for more than 30 minutes. Smartphone exposure duration was positively correlated with dysregulation score (r=0.61, 95% CI: 0.45–0.73; p<0.001). Conclusion: Longer and more frequent nighttime smartphone soothing was associated with higher emotional dysregulation scores among preschool children. These findings support parental counseling on structured bedtime routines and non-digital soothing strategies.
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