Differences between fathers and mothers of children of younger school age in parental behavior in the relationship to the media and their connection with chosen activities of children in front of screens of digital devices
Abstrakt
The use of digital technologies by children is a phenomenon which attracts more and more attention from scientists. Parental mediation and regulation of the use of digital technologies shows inconclusive results in the prevention of problematic use of digital devices. The current study focuses on parental behavior in relation to the media in children aged 6 to 10 years in Slovakia (while this research is part of a larger international comparative research ongoing in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Finland). The primary objective of the current study was to determine the relationship and predictive power of selected forms of parental behavior and selected activities of children in front of screens (e.g. watching videos, playing games, using social networks). The secondary aim was to find out the differences between fathers and mothers in various types of parental mediation. The research group consisted of 358 parents, of which 16.20% were men. The MEPA-21 questionnaire was used to examine parental behavior. The questionnaire consists of four subscales: Active mediation, Rules, Control and Overprotective mediation.
All subscales of the questionnaire, except for Active Mediation, were significantly correlated with selected activities of children in front of digital devices, where Rules and Control significantly negatively predicted watching videos, playing games and chatting. Despite the fact that a significant statistical difference was found in Active Mediation, Control and Overprotective Mediation, with women using them more than men, this difference did not interfere with the predictive relationship between the dependent and independent variables.