Shatskaya Arina, Tarasova Kristina, Surilova Irina
Department of Educational Psychology and Pedagogy, Faculty of Psychology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia.
Laboratory of Childhood Psychology and Digital Socialization, Federal Scientific Center of Psychological and Multidisciplinary Research, Moscow, Russia.
Front Psychol. 2025 Aug 25;16:1568020. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1568020. eCollection 2025.
Family socioeconomic status is broadly acknowledged to be associated with child development and wellbeing. However, the extent of this association across various dimensions of child development remains a topic of ongoing debate. This study aims to investigate the relationship between parental education and child cognitive and socioemotional skills, as well as the mediating role of children's leisure time activities, including screen time and shared book reading. The study involved 1,288 preschool children ( = 70.4 months, SD = 4.53) and their parents. Children's executive functions, emotion comprehension, and peer acceptance were assessed. Parents provided information regarding their educational levels; their children screen time duration and frequency of shared book reading. The conducted assessment of direct and indirect effects through path analysis revealed following findings. First, parental education is related to children's verbal working memory, cognitive flexibility, and emotional comprehension. Second, it showed no significant relation to children's peer acceptance, visual working memory, or inhibitory control. Third, shared book reading and screen time can statistically significantly explain differences in verbal working memory between children, including those associated with differences in parental education. Therefore, low reading frequency and high screen time, often observed in families with lower parental educational attainment, may serve as potential sources of disparities in children achievement and psychological wellbeing throughout development.
家庭社会经济地位被广泛认为与儿童发展和幸福相关。然而，这种关联在儿童发展各个维度上的程度仍是一个持续争论的话题。本研究旨在调查父母教育与儿童认知和社会情感技能之间的关系，以及儿童休闲时间活动（包括屏幕使用时间和亲子共读）的中介作用。该研究涉及1288名学龄前儿童（平均年龄 = 70.4个月，标准差 = 4.53）及其父母。对儿童的执行功能、情绪理解和同伴接纳情况进行了评估。父母提供了有关他们教育水平、孩子屏幕使用时间以及亲子共读频率的信息。通过路径分析对直接和间接效应进行的评估得出了以下结果。第一，父母教育与儿童的言语工作记忆、认知灵活性和情绪理解有关。第二，它与儿童的同伴接纳、视觉工作记忆或抑制控制没有显著关系。第三，亲子共读和屏幕使用时间在统计学上能够显著解释儿童之间言语工作记忆的差异，包括那些与父母教育差异相关的差异。因此，在父母教育程度较低的家庭中经常观察到的低阅读频率和高屏幕使用时间，可能是儿童在整个发展过程中成就和心理健康方面差距的潜在根源。
