Cindy Lopez: There’s a lot of talk right now about the way kids access and use technology. It’s in daily life through entertainment and even in places like school. At Children’s Health Council, we believe technology can be a force for good in the communities that support and educate kids. And families are a child’s first support system, with educators there right alongside with them. So that’s why we created Ellis. Ellis is a chat-based resource for educators that provides evidence-aligned guidance, drawn from trusted expertise. And we use AI to surface that guidance quickly. Over the past year, our team at CHC has worked thoughtfully behind the scenes to build Ellis in a way that supports educators who support your children. So, when teachers encounter challenging moments, whether a student is struggling with focus, anxiety, behavior, or learning differences, they can describe what they’re seeing and receive meaningful guidance in one place. Grounded in over 70 years of CHC experience, Ellis helps educators respond with clarity and consistency, so students receive thoughtful study support from their teachers. You can learn more at askellis.org or find the link in our show notes to share with your favorite teacher.
Welcome. My name is Cindy Lopez, the host of this CHC podcast, Voices of Compassion. We hope you find a little courage, feel connected and experience compassion every time you listen.
What happens when screens become the go-to for calming big emotions? In this episode of Voices of Compassion, CHC postdoctoral Fellows, Sydney Hernandez and Elsa Cincione explore how technology impacts emotional regulation in young children. They explain what the research says about the latest screen time guidelines and what it means for families. So, listen in to hear about the development of emotional regulation in young children, practical guardrails for healthy use of devices, and why co-regulation matters more than quick fixes. This conversation offers clarity, compassion, and realistic strategies for families navigating screen time in early childhood.
Elsa and Sydney, thank you so much for joining us today. This topic, talking about emotional regulation and how technology plays a role in that, that’s a really interesting one, and I’m anxious to dive into our conversation. But, before we do, why don’t you each take a minute to tell our listeners a little bit more about yourselves.
Sydney Hernandez, PhD: Hi, my name is Sydney Hernandez. I’m a postdoc fellow here at Children’s Health Council. And I did my doctoral program at Palo Alto University and then went for a year to do my internship at Rochester Institute Technology, and my clinical focus is on early childhood development and developmental trauma.
Elsa Cincione, PsyD: Hello everyone. My name is Elsa Cincione. I am the other early childhood postdoctoral fellow at CHC this year, and I did my training at Stanford, Palo Alto University, and UCLA. My research has primarily looked at neurodiversity and supporting the neurodiverse population, and I also love working with that early childhood population.
Cindy Lopez: Thank you so much again for joining us, and as we get started, I think it might be a good idea to just give a little bit of an overview of emotion regulation in young children, like what does that mean? What are we talking about?
Elsa Cincione, PsyD: Yes. Great. We want to get the terms out of the way. So, when we think about emotion regulation, we’re thinking about the skills that we develop that are necessary to monitor our emotions. So, what are we feeling? And then to manage and express our emotions in a way that’s not only appropriate to the situation, but also allows us to achieve our goals. So, for example, when I lose a card game with my husband, I think it’s very appropriate that I am very upset, but if my goal is to keep getting to play, I need to manage those emotions to be able to not get labeled as the poor sport.
Cindy Lopez: That’s so true. And I think especially, it’s something that young children are learning, right? It’s definitely part of the learning curve for them. When we talk young children, what are the ages we are talking about and what does the development of emotion regulation in young children look like? How does that occur?
Elsa Cincione, PsyD: We’re thinking about typically the zero to six age range, and when it comes to emotional regulation development, we are talking about a skill that is very externally supported initially. So, infants and young children with these emerging abilities really rely on their caregivers to scaffold the emotional regulation. And this is where a very popular term these days, co-regulation comes in. So, a caregiver is guiding and calming the emotional experience. And then we’re thinking about moving as we age and develop to a more self-initiated strategy. So, these are what we think of as coping skills, and these are going to be more internally located, so labeling our own emotions, being able to state how we’re feeling, being able to use learned coping skills as we get a bit older.
Cindy Lopez: So, my background is education, but I started in early childhood. So, I’m picturing all these kids that I knew once upon a time. But thinking about this, the idea of co-regulation and coping and that it’s not really a one and done kind of thing. It’s not like there’s a point in time that you learn this, and you’re done learning it. And I could say as an adult, I’m learning new ways to cope all the time. So, what are your thoughts about that, how does that continue to develop over time?
Elsa Cincione, PsyD: Oh, I’d absolutely agree with you. I think as we get older our emotional challenges also increase in demandingness and also change in nature. So, the coping skills that we use to manage losing a soccer game might not be the same coping skills that are going to be effective to managing when our romantic partner is upset with us. So, just as you said, Cindy, it’s always an evolving skill.
Cindy Lopez: Yeah, and I think that’s really important for our listeners too, this soundtrack in your head, you’re probably saying it over and over again to your kids in some ways, and you’re changing it up in some ways and that’s normal, like that’s part of how kids learn.
So, today we’re talking about young children, so that zero to six, we’re talking about emotion regulation, and we’re laying on technology, which is really interesting to me. So, let’s talk about technology and what the recommendations are as we think about screen time and technology use with young children.
Sydney Hernandez, PhD: Yeah, that’s really important to talk about, especially since we have such various amount of technology and everything is evolving nowadays, but the current guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics and their recommendations, there’s a lot, but these are some of the main ones.
So, for babies under 18 months, the recommendation is to avoid screens altogether. You know, you have those exceptions where we have family from across the United States or different countries and you want to FaceTime them, right? So, that can be very beneficial for a baby to see another caregiver or an important person FaceTiming, right?
And then between 18 and 24 months, if you’re introducing those screens, you want educational content, watch together with a caregiver or somebody present, and not handing them a tablet, sitting with them, talking about the content with them or pointing things out, like, “Look, wow, he is kicking a ball!” or “He is hugging his dad or his mom.”
And then for two to five, those guidelines is again, to limit the non-educational screen time to about an hour. And maybe a couple hours more than that on the weekends. And it’s not about perfection, it’s about just trying to be a little bit better and intentional.
Cindy Lopez: As we’ve talked about this on past podcast episodes even for older kids and families, there are other podcast episodes we’ve done around this. I’ll put those in the show notes, but things like keeping devices out of the bedrooms, you know, everybody puts their phone away for dinner. There might be some times in your family when it’s just, there’s no device. There is no screens at a certain time with your family, and that could be something that you all agree on. Obviously for young children, zero to six, including them in that kind of conversation looks different. Like, okay, we’re going to say no screens while we’re eating dinner. And it’s okay to give them some boundaries around that.
Sydney Hernandez, PhD: I totally agree. And I think that you’re leading by example, parents lead by example. As you mentioned, no screen times during meals or family outings, having parental controls, but also like following that, you are not going to have a tablet 30 or 60 minutes before bed, and I’m not going to have my phone either during that time too.
Cindy Lopez: Yeah that modeling piece is so important, and I think it’s easy for us to forget that as parents and caregivers because our worlds revolve around our devices and our interaction with information. So, I know that the American Academy of Pediatrics, their recommendations talk about high quality programming. What does that actually mean and how can people identify high quality programming?
Sydney Hernandez, PhD: I think that’s a great question, trying to decipher what is high quality programming and low quality programming. I think very thoughtfully designed, educational, creative media that doesn’t have that auto play and also doesn’t have things that pop up, like notifications. I’m thinking of PBS kids. You have even some drawing apps that you can draw on the tablet if you don’t have crayons or paper readily available. And thinking back to how to make something that’s perhaps maybe could be low quality programming into a high quality by doing something together. And I know a lot of kids right now like Minecraft, but building something together with them in Minecraft instead of having them do something alone, something that’s not overstimulating to kids that can mess with sleep or attention. And I’m thinking of these auto plays on YouTube or maybe on TikTok scrolling. Again, we’re talking about younger kids, but I know that as parents we may have TikTok on our phone and the kids might accidentally grab our things, and then be scrolling and then just end up on a rabbit hole unexpectedly.
Cindy Lopez: And I think what you noted about overstimulating, I think that’s a critical piece of deciding what’s appropriate for your kids. You don’t want to overstimulate them, especially, like before bedtime or they’re trying to do some schoolwork. Like, just be thoughtful about where and what types of technology your child’s interacting with.
Sydney, you just said like some drawing apps. There might be some really good appropriate uses of technology for younger kids that are not about sitting in front of a screen endlessly watching something. There are also some devices or programs that research suggests can calm or soothe the young children. Can you talk about that? Does that actually happen?
Sydney Hernandez, PhD: Yeah. Building on what Elsa said previously about that shift from co-regulation to self-regulation–that’s what I think is really at stake here. When we constantly hand a child a screen to calm them down, we’re interrupting that developmental process. The screen is becoming the regulator and not the kid themselves. I know that there was a study published in October of 2024 that followed children from three and a half to five and a half years old. They found that greater tablet use at three and a half predicted increased anger and frustration a year later, and those kids with higher anger and frustration were then more likely to be given tablets to calm down. So, you’re like in this self-reinforcing like cycle tablet to tantrum to tablet again. Looking through this in the behavioral lens. What’s happening is a classic positive reinforcement, but in the direction that we don’t want. The child gets dysregulated, they get this screen, the screen feels good. So, we’re actually reinforcing this dysregulation and this article from October 2024 definitely shows that. We’re teaching the brain like when I fall apart, I get the thing that I want.
Mike Navarrete: CHC’s Voices of Compassion podcast is made possible by the generosity of people like you. To learn more about supporting CHC, go to chconline.org/donate. Also make sure to follow us on social media for more inspiring and educational content from CHC.
Cindy Lopez: Going back to thinking about kids, we have typically developing kids that we’ve been talking about. Let’s talk for a minute about kids who are neurodivergent. Many of our parents and listeners are likely caregivers of kids who are neurodivergent. How might this look different for those kids?
Elsa Cincione, PsyD: I love this question, but I’m going to admit that it’s a tough question because a good answer to this question is going to have to be specific to the child and their family. So, I’m going to kind of talk big picture. The first thing I want to acknowledge is that parents and caregivers of neurodiverse children report increased stress levels and higher parenting demands. So, before I dive into thinking about screen time, I want to acknowledge that they’re managing a really typically challenging situation and oftentimes find themselves more likely in the situation where it’s easier to hand over a tablet and that makes total sense. Now we want to think about, of course, acknowledging how we’re all just surviving and getting through the day. But we also want to make sure that we are empowering people to understand what the research says. So, the research seems to point to a bidirectional relationship between screen time and increased symptoms. So, when we see a bi-directional relationship, we have to ask ourselves the question, does this mean increased screen time leads to more elevated symptoms? Or do the children who already have high support needs end up getting more screen time? And from my own clinical experience, I can say I’ve seen both situations.
I think prolonged screen time can certainly exacerbate challenging behaviors or communication deficits, but I’ve also seen kids with high needs be on screens more because that might be the one thing that’s keeping them safe. And in that case, we certainly would say safety is the first priority. On average, we do know that neurodiverse children are typically exposed to more screen time. So, there was a huge study in 2021 looking at preschoolers with ADHD, and we found that 80% of those children were on the high end of the screen time, so above average. So, that might be something that we want to be mindful of. At the end of the day, if I’m speaking directly to a parent, I would say, “You are the expert of your own child.” If you notice, oh, after, my child watches Cocomelon, he always has a really hard time coping, then we might think, okay, screen time might not be helping him develop those skills. It might actually be exacerbating some of those challenges we’re seeing. So, in that case, we might think about adjusting screen time. Just as Sydney was saying, thinking about what type of screen time they’re being exposed to and thinking about higher quality content.
Quickly, I’m going to give two important caveats. So, that’s to say that not all screen time is created equal and we know that for many children, perhaps we can think of those who really struggle to pay attention, but they can pay attention with a screen in front of them. They might really benefit from an educational program that’s done on the computer that’s really interactive. And we don’t want to discount that at all. And then the second caveat is there have been many studies in the last few years about telehealth therapy, and we want to think about telehealth therapy differently than screen time, because we do know that you can look into each intervention specifically, but on average, telehealth therapy is effective and it’s fantastic for being so much more accessible. So, if you’re weighing the pros and cons of screen time versus no therapy or screen time versus telehealth therapy, we would definitely encourage thinking about telehealth therapy.
Cindy Lopez: Yeah. That makes total sense. And both of you, Sydney and Elsa, mentioned some studies that point to negative effects of screens and technology for young children. So, why is that? What’s the mechanism there that is causing these potentially negative effects when using technology?
Sydney Hernandez, PhD: That’s a great question to understand what’s actually happening in the child’s brain and body when we hand them that screen to calm them down. A few things first, when a kid is dysregulated, we hear that word a lot, crying, tantrum, feeling overwhelmed. Their nervous system is in this heightened state. The developmental task in the moment is for them to learn with our help, how to bring that activation down. That’s the co-regulation that I was talking about earlier and that Elsa mentioned too. Over time, with enough repetition, they internalize that process and start doing it themselves. That’s how self-regulation happens, but when we hand them the screen we skip that whole process. The screen doesn’t help them with that process of the emotion. It just suppresses it, like putting a lid on a boiling pot. The heat’s still there. We just can’t see it anymore. The child hasn’t learned anything about their internal state or how to manage it. They just learn that something external makes that kind of like go away, that bad feeling go away. And I think second, like screens are incredibly effective at capturing our attention. And that’s definitely by design. So, the child’s arousal drops not because they’ve regulated, but also because their attention kind of has been in a way, hijacked. It’s like a neurological override, not like a resolution. And because it works so fast and it’s so reliable, it becomes a path of least resistance for the child and for us.
Cindy Lopez: If I were a listener right now, I’d be thinking, “Oh my gosh, I’ve ruined my child,” you know. So, that is not the message we want to send to all of you who are listening in, we want you to just understand when to use technology or screens, when it might be better to use some alternative methods. So, and we know, Elsa, you alluded to this, sometimes parents, it’s the end of a long day, you’re in a restaurant and you just want to keep your child contained and regulated in the setting. So, if they weren’t using technology to help with that, what could parents do instead?
Elsa Cincione, PsyD: Yes, fantastic question, and I’m just going to reiterate, when we are desperate, we are desperate, and we’re going to do whatever works to manage that crisis. And if the decision is between my child getting screen time and I as a parent having a meltdown, I’m going to give the child the screen time and allow myself to regulate. Now, I think what we want to be curious about is if I notice myself feeling desperate more often than I would like, or if I notice handing the tablet over is honestly my main tool for calming my child down, then I would say, let’s think about how we can build out your parental toolbox so that you feel more in control, you feel more capable in situations, and that you’re not in a place where you feel desperate regularly. So, there we want to think about different strategies. I love that you brought up the restaurant because that’s such a common one. And I’d encourage many parents to bring a little activity bag. This is going to depend on what works for your specific child and the age of your specific child, but drawing is a great one to have in there, little puzzles or if your child really benefits from something sensory, some different sensory tools. And I also think we want to set ourselves up for success even before we get to that restaurant. And that means kind of having a parent playbook, which is, let’s say I have a 4-year-old. I know that at home he probably only sits at the table for max 15 minutes. I am going to think it would be really unreasonable for me to expect him to sit for 45 minutes at a restaurant. So, I’m going to say every 12, 10 minutes, we’re going to do a little movement break. We’ll go take a walk and one parent can do a little walk with him. And I’m going to prime the child beforehand. I’m going to be like, you do such a great job sitting at the table at home, we’re going to practice those skills at the restaurant. And you could even throw in some positive rewards. So, saying like, if we sit at the table, you can take some walking breaks with mom or dad, but if we’re able to sit, then we might even get a little treat at the end, you know, a little dessert. Something along those lines. Just being aware of what your playbook is, and then also priming the child to know what skills are going to be expected of them in this new environment and what they could earn by really practicing those skills. What’s in it for them to sit still?
Cindy Lopez: So, Elsa it’s so helpful. I mean, I’m sure that our listeners can picture themselves in the restaurant with their kids and thinking, okay, this is where I’ve been, I’ve done that. And so for our listeners, however you have coped in the past, it’s okay, but also be mindful about just as Elsa noted, building your toolkit to respond to your kids, and those specific kinds of moments. And we also know that you need a break, parents need a break. So, is there room for like healthy screen use in that scenario where parents need a break?
Elsa Cincione, PsyD: Certainly, and I think what we’re maybe dancing around is that ultimately it’s not going to be that helpful if you’re walking around with a ton of shame for handing your 4-year-old a tablet. We want you to know that it’s okay and it totally happens, but if you’re curious about building some skills or just even feeling confident in your screen time approach, I think the research suggests that let’s build in a break predictably. So, let’s say, okay, I need to have some time to make dinner and have my hands free. That 30 to 40 minutes every single weekday is going to be screen time. Then we’re going to get curious about what kind of content is that content or is that screen time, is that going to be high stimulus, you know, just as Sydney was saying, like notifications, you can click whatever you want, just letting YouTube go free or is that going to be a downregulating show? You think of Mr. Rogers or you think of Sesame Street and having that be something regular that the child then gets practice transitioning away from. So, they know they get to watch that one segment every day and they also get to practice putting the screen time down or turning off the TV and coming to dinner.
We also want think about the concern of isolation and screen time when we think about parents needing a break. And it makes total sense that you need some time for you, but we want to be mindful of building in that reconnection time after the screen time has been used. Because as you know, Sydney was discussing with co-regulation, we’re still in that transition period of moving from co-regulation to the internally kind of driven regulation. And so oftentimes children in this age range really benefit from reconnecting after solo screen time.
Cindy Lopez: I wonder, you also talked about co-viewing or co-using screens or media, technology with young children, what does that look like? Is a parent just sitting down watching with the child? Is there interaction occurring?
Elsa Cincione, PsyD: Hmm, that’s a great question. Co-viewing can mean many different things. We have one huge study that looked at over 11,000 families in six different European countries that found that overall co-viewing media together actually reduced screen time in total. And we found that for many families, it allows for families to then have shared vocabulary. So, they’re referencing that show, they’re continuing the conversation about what happened in the show. Even asking a little three-year-old, “What do you think is going to happen next,” is so helpful for their brain to start that thinking of planning and, oh, what do I think is going to happen in this situation or asking a child, “Hey, do you think Bluey handled that situation well or did he lose his cool.” Again, helping kids see examples of regulation and being able to talk about it is huge for that development. I mentioned a huge study out of Europe. There’s also been a huge study in the Middle East, looking at families viewing a very specific program together, and they found that not only did it help children actually develop some of these emotion regulation skills, but it gave families an opportunity to have a shared vocabulary about what those skills are and to continue beyond just watching the show to kind of, you know, in the car or at school, keep having those conversations.
Cindy Lopez: If the parents are co-viewing with the kids, then they’re able to kind of extend that learning beyond that moment and bring it back again and connect the dots for the kids too and that makes total sense.
So, Sydney and Elsa, as we wrap up our time, I’m wondering what do you think the top three things are that parents should remember?
Sydney Hernandez, PhD: If I had to tell parents three things to walk away with, I think they would be that your presence is the most powerful. That no app, no device can do what you do. As Elsa mentioned before, you are the expert of your child. And I think this plays into that, you’re the most powerful regulator when you stay calm. Name the feeling, write it out. Screens can capture attention, but they can’t do what you do. They can’t co-regulate like you can with your kid. And I think the second thing is that it’s about patterns, not perfection. I think Elsa worded it so perfectly when saying, it’s okay to hand your child a tablet and do these things. It’s the intention. We have times in the restaurant where we have to use it, right? But asking yourself is this the exception or is it becoming the rule. If screens are the only tool in the toolkit, that’s when it starts to shape how their brain learns how to cope. And as Elsa mentioned, you can have a lot of tools in your toolkit. You bring a little bag with you to the restaurant.
And the last thing, maybe the shortcut now often becomes the longer road later. Using a screen to stop a tantrum works in the moment, but it skips the whole developmental process. And over time, you can end up in that cycle. The research that we’ve been talking about shows that the tablet to tantrum to tablet that we outsource the soothing and the less practice they get doing it themselves. And I also think you mentioned an important part, Cindy, earlier, that parents hearing all this, I’ve already been doing this wrong and I’ve been doing things to harm my child. You haven’t broken anything. Young brains have so much plasticity. Every moment, every connection you sit with them they’re learning and they’re growing. It’s never too late to start. And I think the fact that a parent is even thinking about this and listening to this that means they’re ready on the right track.
Cindy Lopez: Really appreciate your time with us today and your expertise around this topic. And it’s one that I know that parents and caregivers are really interested in. To our listeners, if you are experiencing some difficulties with your child, young child specifically that are beyond what you can cope with or you think that it’s beyond what the child’s able to deal with, please reach out. We are here for you at CHC. You can contact our care team at [email protected] or you can call us at 650-688-3625. We have free parent consultations. You can schedule 30 minutes with a clinician to talk about what’s going on with your child. You can get more input and advice. This podcast, there are episodes that have occurred in the past that might be really helpful to you. We have free parent support groups at CHC, all virtual. So, please reach out if you need more help or your child needs some more help. So, thank you, Elsa and Sydney for joining us and to our listeners as well.
Sydney Hernandez, PhD: Thank you.
Elsa Cincione, PsyD: Thank you so much.
Visit us online at podcasts.chconline.org. Make sure to subscribe to Voices of Compassion so you never miss an episode, and we’d love it if you’d leave us a rating and review. Have a question? Send us an email or a voice memo at [email protected]. We’re here for you when you need us.