Digital–Relational Classroom Ecology: Teachers’ Perspectives on Digital Media, Self-Regulation, Reward Seeking, and Classroom Functioning

Digital media have become deeply embedded in children’s everyday lives, but teachers encounter their effects, or perceived effects, through classroom behavior rather than through screen-time measures alone. This study explored how 19 preschool and early-primary teachers in North Cyprus made sense of children’s digital-media-related experiences across four face-to-face interviews each, a structured follow-up, and a collaborative workshop. Interview material was examined through hybrid inductive–deductive qualitative content analysis. Teachers’ accounts converged around four areas: attention, stimulation, and self-regulation; relational and developmental functioning; external motivation, reward seeking, and attention seeking; and family–digital ecology. They also described uncertainty when similar classroom behaviors could be understood in developmental, environmental, or clinical terms. These patterns were brought together in the Digital–Relational Classroom Ecology framework, an emergent teacher-informed synthesis linking digital practices with family routines, motivation, regulation, relationships, and classroom demands. The findings point to educational responses that attend to context, adult practices, and home–school coordination rather than relying on screen-time restriction alone.