Preschool children are immersed in screen media, yet little study has been conducted on screen addiction among them. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between parental screen addiction and young children’s screen addiction and to verify factors that mediate this relationship. A total of 477 parents of kindergarteners (3–6 years old) were recruited via six kindergartens in Henan province, China. They completed the Problematic Media Use Measure Short Form of Children, the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale, the Child–Parent Relationship Scale, and the Parental Screen Addiction Scale. The results showed that the relationships between each pair of parental screen addiction, parental anxiety, and children’s screen addiction were significantly positive, but the parent–child relationship was negatively correlated with the other variables. Parental screen addiction can directly and indirectly affect children’s screen addiction through parental anxiety and the parent–child relationship. The findings contribute to the development of family protection mechanisms against screen addiction in children.

The teacher–child relationship is a key element in measuring the quality of childcare institutions and is essential to the current and future physical and mental developmental outcomes of children. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of private preschool teachers’ readiness to teach in influencing the teacher–child relationship, and to explore the mechanisms by which teachers’ motivation and self-efficacy mediate their readiness to teach and the teacher–child relationship. Online questionnaires were administered to 289 early-childhood teachers in Shanghai, China. The findings of the study indicated a significant and positive correlation between early-childhood teachers’ readiness to teach and the quality of the teacher–child relationship. In addition, early-childhood teachers’ internal motivation to teach and self-efficacy mediated their readiness to teach and the teacher–child relationship, respectively. However, teachers’ external motivation did not mediate the effect of teaching readiness on the quality of the teacher–child relationship. Moreover, teachers’ motivation to teach (encompassing both internal and external factors) and their self-efficacy played chained roles in mediating the relationships between teaching readiness and the teacher–child relationship. This study highlights the significant roles of teaching readiness and instructional motivation, along with self-efficacy, in cultivating positive teacher–child relationships within early-childhood education settings.