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Digital parenting: Individual, situational, contextual

April 16, 2015 By Anne 2 Comments

It’s so interesting to see what British psychologist Sonia Livingstone zooms in on in American psychologist Lynn Schofield Clark’s book on parenting digital media users, The Parent App. Dr. Livingstone picked up on what I liked most about the book too: diversity and depth of insight. Dr. Clark interviewed “46 very different families” for a study that Livingstone calls “one of the most astute inquiries into the state of modern American parenting.”

theparentappThe diversity and insights into other families’ experiences and practices could well be comforting to parents, because we know that parenting is very individual (for the parent and the kids) and very fluid. It adjusts and calibrates to changing, maturing kids, to situations kids and parents encounter and to contexts both environmental and social. We also know that the digital parts of family members’ lives are just that: embedded parts of our communicating, relating, playing, working, learning, etc. So digital parenting, if there really is such a thing, is just as individual, situational and contextual as all the rest of it.

What’s just as individual but not nearly as fluid – thankfully – even across generations, is the bedrock of parenting:

“Clark believes that families operate with a kind of philosophy – their values, life stories, cautionary tales and tried-and-tested experiences,” Livingstone writes. “If parents openly articulate these values to their children, using this as an opportunity for shared discussion and reflection, children may understand better why things are to be done in a certain way in their family. It’s not that all families should be the same, or that parents’ views should always predominate. But it is important that children understand why their parents do things the way they do.”

I wrote “thankfully,” because it’s exactly this bedrock that helps us parents and our kids find our way as we navigate life and media each day. This is what can comfort and guide us: “a strong family narrative,” I noted in the writing of parent, author and commentator Bruce Feiler a couple of years ago. Helping our kids know who and where they came from and what’s valued and important in “our family” helps them form identity, resilience, self-knowledge and -love, which guide and protect them in and out of media.

Family approaches to digital media fall into two very basic categories, Clark found in her conversations with those 46 families:

  • “Those who live by an ethic of expressive empowerment,” Livingstone writes (emphasis mine). “This is strong among upper-income families who encourage media use for learning, expression and personal development, and discourage media use that seems to promote distraction or time-wasting (as they perceive it).
  • “Those who prioritise an ethic of respectful connectedness – more often found among lower-income families, where the emphasis is on media use that is respectful, compliant and family-focused.”

How helpful to be aware of these approaches and consider letting both inform our parenting styles, regardless of any class – or culture or nationality – we might identify with or fall into! At different times, aspects of both “expressive empowerment” and “respectful connectedness” will be called for in digital spaces throughout our children’s lives (not just when they’re with us), as well other parenting styles – sometimes more authoritarian, sometimes just authoritative and, ideally, most times communicative. Just know that, even with the new digital factor in the mix, underlying all the fluidity there’s bedrock to build on.

Related links

  • Another very key viewpoint: “Digital & social: A teen’s perspective on parenting“
  • The essential ethics piece: “‘Disconnected’: Crucial book for closing the ‘ethics gap’ online“
  • “Media siege mentality: Antidote for parents“
  • Alien territory?: “Consider the possibility of kids’ self-regulation of digital media“
  • “Parents more protectionist than empowering: Study“
  • More on Prof. Lynn Schofield Clark’s work: “Parenting the littlest media users,” “Peering thoughtfully through this window into our kids’ lives,” “One mom’s cellphone contract for her son,” and “Parenting or (digital) public humiliation?“
  • Insights from another parent and professor, David Finkelhor at the University of New Hampshire: “Net safety’s ‘3 alarmist assumptions’: Researcher” and “Net-related ‘juvenoia,’ Part 2: So why are we afraid?“
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Filed Under: Parenting, Social Media Tagged With: digital parenting, family, Lynn Schofield Clark, Parenting, Sonia Livingstone, The Parent App, values

Reader Interactions

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  1. Why partner with teens on tech: Great new book - NetFamilyNews.org says:
    September 19, 2022 at 4:07 am

    […] a child’s home and school contexts into our thinking about their use of digital tech and media: The Parent App, by Lynn Schofield Clark (2015) and Parenting for a Digital Future, by Sonia Livingstone and Alicia […]

    Reply
  2. #P4DF: The book about (digital) parenting - NetFamilyNews.org says:
    August 13, 2020 at 12:05 pm

    […] the people involved, the life context and their mental outlook at that point in time. It’s individual, situational and contextual. Over a decade ago a national task force I served on found that a child’s psychosocial makeup and […]

    Reply

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2016 TEDx Talk on
the heart of digital citizenship

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IMPORTANT RESOURCES

Our (DIGITAL) PARENTING BASICS: Safety + Social
NAMLE, the National Association for Media Literacy Education
CASEL.org & the 5 core social-emotional competencies of SEL
Center for Democracy & Technology
Center for Innovative Public Health Research
Childnet International
Committee for Children
Congressional Internet Caucus Academy
ConnectSafely.org
Control Shift: a pivotal book for Internet safety
Crimes Against Children Research Center
Crisis Textline
Cyber Civil Rights Initiative's Revenge Porn Crisis Line
Cyberwise.org
danah boyd's blog and book about networked youth
Disconnected, Carrie James's book on digital ethics
FOSI.org's Good Digital Parenting
The research of Global Kids Online
The Good Project at Harvard's School of Education
If you watch nothing else: "Parenting in a Digital Age" TED Talk by Prof. Sonia Livingstone
The International Bullying Prevention Association
Let Grow Foundation
Making Caring Common
Raising Digital Natives, author Devorah Heitner's site
Renee Hobbs at the Media Education Lab
MediaSmarts.ca
The New Media Literacies
Report of the Aspen Task Force on Learning & the Internet and our guide to Creating Trusted Learning Environments
The Ruler Approach to social-emotional learning (Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence)
Sources of Strength
"Young & Online: Perspectives on life in a digital age" from young people in 26 countries (via UNICEF)
"Youth Safety on a Living Internet": 2010 report of the Online Safety & Technology Working Group (and my post about it)

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