American Journal of Family Therapy    

JUDITH A. OWENS, M.D., Children’s National Medical Center, Washington, District of Columbia, USA

ALLISON SCHETTINI EVANS, Ph.D., Brown University Alpert School of Medicine, Providence, Rhode Island, USA

MELISSA L. NEMON, Ph.D., Brandeis University Heller School of Social Policy and Management, Waltham, Massachusetts, USA

Key Words: Parenting, Screen Time ADHD, Homework, Learning Habit, Social Skills, Grit

Acceptance Date: June 18, 2014

Publication Date: September 2, 2014  

• Database: Largest database of contemporary psycho-social issues now in existence.
• Connecting the dots: Analysis of multiple variables on the same families permitting global analysis of the interaction of family life, media, and parenting styles with children’s grades, focus, mental health, sociability, and sleep.
• Parenting: Analysis of the effects of two common parenting styles in relation to focus (ADHD), GPA, sleep, emotion, screen time, and grit.
• Family Time: The overall effect between time a family spends together and the amount of media consumption a child has and the degree of emotional problems a child exhibits.
• Media Safe-Zone:  Objective evidence regarding amount of screen exposure where children are relatively free of deleterious effects.
• Media Danger-Zone: Objective evidence regarding the progressive amount of screen exposure a child has in relation to problematic academic performance and sleep.
• Homework Time: Children’s GPA’s vs. relative homework load (using the National Teacher’s Association’s 10 Minute Rule) analyzed from first to twelfth grade.

OBJECTIVE:

• To create a database of more than 20,000 American families for ongoing study of their routines, style of parenting, and the  presence of screen time upon child outcomes in the areas of academic performance, emotion, focus, homework, grit, sociability, and sleep.
• To determine the impact of multiple variables on each other.

METHOD

• The survey instrument consisted of 109 prompts and corresponding replies. 46,125 viewers took part in The Learning Habit Survey. The analysis of this article focused on 21,145 parents of children who were in kindergarten through twelfth grade and who answered all items. Hyperlinks were provided by WebMD, AOL/Huffington Post, The National PTA and Parents Magazine.

RESULTS:

• As the largest known study of its kind, it was not possible to present and discuss the analysis of all variables within the confines of a journal article.  This may be found in The Learning Habit (Perigee/Penguin Random House, 2014), designed for parents and educators.

• Parenting: Empowerment parenting, which is a style is closely allied with authoritative parenting and rewards desired behavior, was more efficacious than traditional parenting, which is style closely allied with authoritarian parenting and punishes undesired behavior, in the promotion of children’s grades, sleep, focus (ADHD symptoms), grit and emotional health.
• Screen time:  A “safe zone” from deleterious effects of screen time was calculated at 45 minutes. The “danger zone” occurred slightly before two hours with a half point drop in children’s GPA.  After four hours of accumulated screen time, the GPA of children dropped slightly more than a full point.
• Family Time: Three variables were significantly related to reduced screen time among children, higher GPA, and fewer emotional problems. These were regular dinners, attending religious services, and playing board games together.
• Homework:  Based on the 10 Minute Rule (10 minutes of homework per day for every year a child is in school, e.g.,  20 minutes for second grader, 70 minutes for a seventh grader) children who had this duration of homework time did better academically than children who had less.  However, there was virtually no benefit from time spent beyond the 10 Minute Rule.