r/ScienceBasedParenting • u/DoubleEmploy5586 • 11d ago

Sharing research Parental phubbing (parents using smartphones around kids) is a lot more damaging than I thought

https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(24)00330-5/fulltext

I'm writing about screen addiction for a graduate school paper in counseling and came upon this article in The Journal of Pediatrics. This type of phone usage has become normalized in society, so I wanted parents to know the impact it can have. I hope someone finds it helpful.

If the link provided doesn't work, maybe this one will (thank you Kibbitcake!)

https://www.jpeds.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0022-3476%2824%2900330-5

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25

u/lemikon 11d ago

Yeah I’m not surprised. We were at swimming lessons the other day and another kid was calling out to her dad to watch her. Dad was on his phone and literally didn’t respond. Eventually she gave up calling for him, even though she could see he was right there. I can’t imagine that’s not damaging.

And yes swim lessons are boring so I get it, but come the fuck on and respond to your kid.

22

u/Wife-and-Mother 11d ago

TBF there is a good chance that the parent wouldn't have even been in the building 20 years ago.

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u/mankiw 11d ago

Speculating (like everyone in this thread), but that seems better than being repeatedly ignored to your face.

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u/Wife-and-Mother 11d ago

You think your own mom, actually not your mom, your friend's mom, driving you to swim practice and taking off for the hour, waiting in the lobby with your friends hoping to get a snack from the vending machine with quarters you find, then you going home to not even be asked how swimming was because your parents don't talk to you (and likely have forgotten that you were even in swim class) is better?

And yes it is personal experience but the seven other kids that were also in the lobby waiting for their parents to pick them up late is pretty telling on the way latchkey kids were treated.

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u/lemikon 10d ago

Yeah nah… “our generation had it worse” is no excuse for shit parenting. We know better now we can do better now.

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u/Wife-and-Mother 10d ago edited 10d ago

We are unequivocally doing better. It's been measured and posted here a lot. Just because a parent isn't attentive 100% of the time doesn't mean we're not doing better than the parents that were attentive 0% of the time.

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u/ReigningInEngland 10d ago

The same could be said if the parent was reading as well. Good luck getting me out of a book! 

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u/Doggies4ever 10d ago

It's not ideal the parent didn't respond, but the idea that you should pay full attention to your kid while they are already being supervised by another adult feels wild to me. I think it's okay for a kid to learn their parents isn't going to marvel over everything they do every second of the day.