This article was coauthored by Daniel Frost, a professor at Brigham Young University, and Jane Shawcroft, a professor at The Ohio State University.

Talita Pruett, a California mom of three children ages 14, 13, and 5, is doing everything she can to be a present, involved parent. But one issue weighs on her more than anything else: guilt over media use.

She has tried it all: screen-time limits, content filters, charging phones in her bedroom at night, and regular conversations about healthy media habits. Still, she says, guilt lingers, both about her children’s media use and her own.

At first, the family had a strict rule: no phones until age 16. But when Talita’s oldest started high school, the rule proved impossible to maintain—all of her daughter’s peers had smartphones, so she reluctantly agreed to let her have one as well. Within weeks, she noticed her daughter’s grades slipping and wondered if she had made a mistake.

With her middle child, Talita questions whether she has been too strict about screentime rules, even though he already shows some warning signs of media struggles. And then there’s her youngest. Talita says she feels the most guilt about her five-year-old, who uses far more media than her older children did at the same age.

“Sometimes I feel like a complete failure as a parent when I try to help them manage their screen use. It truly feels impossible,” Talita said. “I feel guilty that I might be doing too much. ... And then I feel guilty that I’m not doing enough. We have limits in place and are doing our best, but I still feel so guilty all the time,” she confessed.

Talita is not alone: worry and guilt over children’s media use have become an everyday part of being a parent. New data from the United States, collected by one of us (Coyne) in a paper currently........

© Psychology Today