Masters of Media: A longitudinal study of parental media efficacy, media monitoring, and child problematic media use across early childhood in the United States.

The development of problematic media use in early childhood is not well understood. The current study examined long-term associations between parental media efficacy, parental media monitoring, and problematic media use across a three-year period of time during early childhood. Participants included 432 parents who reported on their own parenting and their child's use of problematic media once a year for three years (M age of child at Wave 1 = 29.68 months, SD = 3.73 months). Results revealed that early parental media efficacy predicted lower levels of child problematic media use over time. Restrictive media monitoring was also related to lower levels of child problematic media use over time. Additionally, general parental efficacy was related to parental media efficacy and lower child problematic media use, both at the cross-sectional and longitudinal levels. Discussion focuses on encouraging early parental media efficacy (and exploring other potential mechanisms) as a way to mitigate the development of problematic media use over time.