Digital Parenting: Rules May Not Be the Answer

Like many elder millennials, I was often left to my own devices during my formative years of adolescence. As the latch-key kid of a single mom, I navigated my way home from school after sports practices, started homework, or (more realistically) sat and watched music videos while on the phone with my friends. My mother had rules, but as long as those guidelines were followed, there wasn’t much strict oversight.

I also realize I come from a time that no longer exists in our society. My teen years predate Facebook by almost 20 years. I didn’t own a cell phone until I was a 21-year-old college senior. My young life happened at the moment, went largely undocumented, and called for a different sort of parenting approach.

Now, parenting requires more than simply ensuring young people are safe, fed, clothed, and educated. Raising children in today’s digital ecosystem requires preparing them for a different sort of existence, one in which they not only know how to sidestep offline and online dangers but also possess a larger set of skills to create a healthy life in both realms. It’s somewhat unfair because many parents (especially my fellow elder millennials) are having to raise children in a world they didn’t experience as young people and don’t often understand—a sense of overwhelm on their part is understandable.

Thankfully, researchers are delving into “digital parenting” and assessing what is needed to help young people thrive both online and offline. Spoiler alert: It’s not (only) limits and restrictions.

Digital Parenting: What Works

The increase in children’s television viewing gave birth to the idea of parental mediation, but social media researchers later expanded this idea for use in digital spaces, noting that parental mediation often comes in four forms: active mediation, restrictive mediation, authoritarian surveillance, and nonintrusive inspection. Active mediation is emerging as a clear winner; research shows discussing social media with children and offering guidance on appropriate use is associated with reduced social media risk and fewer depressive symptoms.

Yet new research shows that as effective as active mediation may be, a toolkit of strategies (which still include rules, limits, and monitoring) that can be deployed when needed is probably closer to the gold standard.

In understanding what types of digital parenting approaches are most effective, Researcher Suzanne Geurts and team used waves of data from the Digital Family Project in the Netherlands to create three different parenting profiles based on youth’s perceptions of their parents’ internet-specific and general parenting behaviors:

• Limiting and less supportive (characterized by high reactive restrictions, Internet-specific rule setting, and low responsiveness and autonomy-granting);
• Tolerant and supportive (characterized by low Internet-specific rule setting and reactive restrictions and high responsiveness and autonomy-granting)
• Limiting and supportive (characterized by high Internet-specific rule setting, reactive restrictions, responsiveness, and autonomy-granting).

Results showed that youth who were grouped in the limiting and supportive profile reported fewer symptoms associated with current and possible future problematic social media use than youth grouped in the limiting and less supportive profile. Youth in the tolerant and supportive profile reported fewer problematic social media use symptoms than adolescents in the limiting and less supportive category and the limiting and supportive profile.

The researchers argued that it’s not about using some magic combination of Internet-specific and general parenting practices but employing a supportive general parenting context, independent of Internet use rules and restrictions, that matters most in preventing the risk of problematic social media use. Geurts and the team noted that young people are more likely to internalize/adhere to rules when receiving more parental warmth and support. Also, restrictions are meant to limit time spent online and engagement with what they may see there, but a general supportive parenting context offers support before the device. The rich relationships and safe spaces created by a supportive parenting style help to prevent young people from using social media to satisfy unmet psychological needs.

This research supports the idea that what is happening offline in a young person’s life has a great influence on the effects of what they’re experiencing online. All of us, including young people, use what’s accessible to us to get our psychological needs met. If parents can create a safe, nurturing environment that balances meaningful interaction with specific digital rules and boundaries, young people may be less likely to fill psychological voids with any number of risk behaviors. Parents should be seeking the balance that works best for their young person, especially if parents already know their children are predisposed toward traits and behaviors associated with problematic social media use (i.e., other risk behaviors, low self-control, prior history of anxiety and depression).

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It may also be the case that this balanced approach to digital parenting not only benefits young people but also empowers the parent(s). Researcher Pengfei Zhao and team surveyed U.S.-based parents on their digital parenting readiness and found parents who had a meaningful relationship and shared activities with their child felt more confident in their digital parenting (regardless of their level of technological savvy) and had greater involvement in their child’s digital lives. Obviously, having digital literacy helps, researchers note, but those who are more involved in their children’s lives overall are also engaged in their digital lives—and feel more empowered to use a variety of strategies to help guide them online as they grow.

Keeping their kids safe—whether online or offline—will always remain one of a parent’s top responsibilities. Yet, in this day and age, safety equals teaching young people digital literacy and providing an emotional foundation so that they’re able to steer around the inevitable pitfalls in life. Wherever they may lie. Offering a balance of guidance and autonomy in both online and offline spaces might be the key to raising young people who can confidently and safely navigate their own digital existence.