Middle Class Parents Twice as Likely to be Distracted by Working on Smartphones

Middle-class parents are twice as likely as working-class parents to ignore their children and focus on their phones instead, with mothers the worst offenders, a report has found.

High-earning parents who take their work home with them end up ignoring their children because they are too fixated on electronic devices, experts warned.

The behaviour could be stunting their child's development - and could even be classed as neglect. 

The Ipsos research found that one in three middle-class parents are working when they should be interacting with their children, compared to 15 per cent of working-class parents. 

Mothers were more likely to admit to a smartphone fixation, with 72 per cent admitting using a device while with their children, compared to 62 per cent of fathers. 

Tara Beard-Knowland, senior director at Ipsos, said that professional parents were more likely to have access to smartphones - but added that they were also unable to leave their work at the office. 

"There are probably more people in that middle class group who have got jobs where they expect to be contacted all the time. They work in an office environment where your work follows you home on weekends and you can't leave it behind in the office," she said.

Parents of the youngest children are more likely to be found tapping away at Twitter or Facebook - 86 per cent of parents of under-5s admitted to using social media when they were with their child. 

Charities have previously raised concerns that parents' technology use could be making their children lonely.

Barbara Honey, a senior practice consultant for relationship charity Relate, warned that watching a parent staring at a phone could cause emotional distress for a child, particularly if they are very young.

"If a parent or carer is paying attention to something else and not to the child, children are very perceptive - they can interpret that behaviour and think 'there's something wrong with me, I'm naughty, I'm not good enough'," she said. 

She also warned that parents who are "glued" to a device could be stunting children's social skills - and could even be guilty of neglect. 

While previously activities such as ironing and watching TV could be done while interacting with children, new technology meant parents were more likely to shut them out. 

"You learn crucial social and communication skills from your parents and their interactions with you, and by observing what they are doing. 

"So you could have less effective social and communication skills because of not getting enough teaching, which is quite frightening," she added. 

Psychotherapist Hilda Burke added that parents should be setting an example to stop their children becoming fixated on technology too. 

"It's up to the parents to manage the children's exposure to digital devices.  By setting firm boundaries and modelling a healthy relationship with our digital devices, children are likely to learn how to make technology 'helpful' rather than become enslaved to it," she said. 

Previous research has found that parents' obsession with their smartphones means some children who start primary school are unable to hold conversations. 

Last year The Key, an information and advice service for head teachers, warned that almost 200,000 children were ill-prepared for their first day at school because of lack of social and speech development. 

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