In Contact Chapter 11: Parental mediation
11.1 What is parental mediation:
Parental mediation is the part of the parental upbringing aimed at enabling children to consciously and
selectively manage the media on offer and seeing to it that they can take a critical look at the content on
offer and are able to assess its value. In daily practice this involves children’s gaming, using the internet,
reading and watching TV.
All parental behaviour and statements are inspired by:
- The (implicit or explicit) expectations of parents of their family and their children.
- The use of games and the computers depants of the child is a younger or an older children.
- Of the child is a girl or a boy. Parents set more boundaries for the gaming and TV-watching of
their daughters than of their sons.
- The circumstances and on what parents consider to be good and valuable for their children.
But bringing-up is not purely a matter of setting an example with regard to standards and values and
stimulating or intervening in the development of children. It is also a learning process for the parents
themselves. Although the upbringing of children is also for parents a process of trial and error, the
upbringing process does have five essential acts:
- keep an eye on the child;
- offer security;
- offer physical and psychological care;
- Guide children by expressing expectations; set boundaries.
All parents do these things during the period in which they are responsible for the upbringing, although
content wise this changes somewhat as the children grow older. Different successive phases can be
distinguished regarding the way in which parents and children interact with each other as the children
grow up: showing, discovering together, coaching children and, finally, letting go.
The way in which parents guide the media use of their children consists of three styles:
- Restrictive mediation: regulating what children do with media, e.g. forbidding certain programs
or games, making agreements on time spent and when children are allowed to do something.
Parents also set boundaries for media;
- Active mediation: exchanging opinions, comments and information about what children
stumble across in the media, e.g. giving reasons why certain games are ‘good’ or ‘bad’,
explaining subjects in the media that children cannot yet understand properly or applauding
nice and suitable media expressions. This supervision is also called evaluative, instructive or
informative mediation and corresponds to guiding children by expressing expectations;
- Social coviewing or coplaying: consciously watching or gaming together, parents and children
enjoy themselves, get the creeps or sympathise together. The important thing is exchanging
emotions during the use of media together, although a discussion also takes place on what is
fun or interesting. Some researchers feel that collective media experience is not really bringing
up because it takes place unintentionally.
, - From the child’s perspective, however, it can most certainly be effective. Cuddling up to a parent
when a scene in a fairy tale becomes too scary can help young children curb their fears of media
productions.
- Parents of children up to the age of 12 also use a fourth type of supervision: parents give their
children freedom on the computer but make sure that they know what their child is doing on
the computer, from a distance. This type of supervision, keeping an eye on things, is most used
by parent
Supervision on the internet:
Research by Stichting Mijn Kind Online has shown that the three styles of parental mediation are also
found in the internet use of 6- to 12-year-olds:
- Parents join their children at the computer and exchange experiences. Parents ask their children
what they experience on the internet and what they like;
- Parents set boundaries. They make agreements on how long and when children may use the
internet. In addition, they determine which sites or games may be visited or which music they
can download;
- Parents’ guide their children by telling them what is right and wrong on the internet. They
indicate what their children should do when keeping in touch with others on Hyves or MSN.
Parents give explanations and help their children to think about their own safety
Parents also try to ensure the safety of their children on the internet using other measures. More than
30% to almost 60% of the parents have standard services such as a firewall, a virus scanner, spam filters,
popup killers and filters for unsuitable websites.
Guidance with offline gaming:
For standalone games on a game console or a PC, parents often use restrictive mediation. 63% of the
parents regularly check which PEGI age classification a game has, 56% keeps an eye on the games their
children play and 46% get their children to ask permission before being allowed to play games.
11.2 Much or little parental mediation:
Mediation is generally taken care of more by mothers than by fathers. This has been shown for watching
TV, gaming, the use of the internet, making agreements on what is and is not allowed and talking about
‘good’ and ‘bad’ in the media. Highly educated parents also interfere with the TV and the internet
behaviour of their children more often than less well educated parents. They indicate more often what
they are allowed, keep an eye on this more often, and talk to their children about media more often. For
offline games this is, however, different. In this case, the less well educated parents are the ones
supervising more.
Views on media effects:
- On the one hand, parents expect positive media influences on their children. This mainly
includes cognitive effects: gaining knowledge on nature, language development, stimulation of
concentration and thinking ability as well as improvement of hand-eye coordination;
- On the other hand, parents are worried about possible negative effects on their children, such
as violent behaviour, rude language, getting a wrong world-view, bullying via the internet or
having too little time left for other activities.
, In general, parents worried about the negative effects are more likely to set boundaries for the media
use of their children.
11.3 What works:
Rules:
Making agreements with children on things that they may and may not do on the computer generally
proves to be effective in combating negative media effect, at least for children older than 12 years of
age. But then it is important that parents know what they want to protect their children from. Whether
parental internet rules are also effective for children under the age of 12 has scarcely been studied. In
addition, children performed better at school if their parents see to a healthy balance between the use
of new media and other behaviours.
Talking:
Children who are actively guided are more critical of and more involved with news items, they take
fictional violence less seriously, they are more aware of violence in society and they react less terrified
and worried to serious news items. Dutch research has shown that active guidance can also result in
children becoming more critical of products in advertising and asking for these products less often. For
children in their puberty it has also been shown that if their parents regularly address them regarding
their internet behaviour they show less compulsive internet behaviour six months later. The results of
active mediation style are strongly related to the quality of the discussions. Discussions started
positively and a warm and open relationship between parent and child, are generally conducive for the
healthy development of the child.
11.4 What do parents want:
Parents and school:
In addition, a large number of parents also think that primary education should spend more time on
media literacy than is now the case, so that children can safely use the internet. According to parents,
schools use media and ICT more as tools in education rather than for education on media. Parents feel
that parents’ evenings dedicated to the internet and other media at primary schools are a good way to
learn about media literacy. Parents feel that parents’ evenings and contact with other parents (e.g. at
the school playground) are better sources of information and knowledge than national campaigns,
books or research reports. Information that should be available to parents regarding support on the
internet behaviour of their children should include three things:
- Firstly, parents want to know which sites and games are suitable for their children.
- Secondly, parents want recommendations on how they can best support their children in
maintaining their contacts via the internet. Parents want to know what is sensible to do if their
child has contact with strangers, what they should do if personal details are asked for and what
information children should not give on their Hyves’ profile sites;
- Finally, parents, although to a lesser extent, are interested in information on responsible
downloading and the use of games, films and music.
