Associations Between Internet-Specific Parenting, General Parenting, and Adolescents’ Online Behaviors: A Cross-Lagged Panel Network Analysis

Apr 13, 2024Journal of youth and adolescence

How Internet-Focused and General Parenting Relate to Teenagers' Online Behaviors Over Time

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Circadian Biology on OpenScience ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Abstract

A total of 564 Chinese students participated in a study examining the relationship between parenting strategies and adolescents' online behaviors.

Previous online behaviors are significant predictors of subsequent parenting strategies, supporting the notion of a child effect.
Reciprocal effects between parenting and adolescents' online behaviors were observed specifically in the context of problematic smartphone use.
Parental mediation strategies, including both encouragement and restrictions, are associated with adolescents' online behaviors.
There is a noted consistency between Internet-specific parenting strategies and general parenting approaches.
Autonomy-supportive parenting is linked to active mediation and parental encouragement, while controlling parenting aligns with restrictive mediation.

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Parents play a crucial role in adolescents' Internet use. Both general parenting (i.e., autonomy-supportive and controlling parenting) and Internet-specific parenting (i.e., restrictive mediation, active mediation, and parental encouragement) are related to adolescents' online behaviors. However, existing studies have focused either on an Internet-specific parenting or general parenting strategy and have neglected their interaction, failing to capture the intricate nature of the parenting context of youth's online behaviors. Few studies have examined parental encouragement or acknowledged the bidirectional influence of parenting on adolescents' online behaviors. To address this gap, this study employed a cross-lagged panel network model to examine the associations among restrictive and active mediation, parental encouragement, and autonomy-supportive and controlling parenting, as well as the interplay of all five parenting strategies with adolescents' online behaviors. A total of 564 Chinese students (51.1% male; mean age = 14.54, SD = 0.7) completed the survey at two time points. The results indicate that in most cases, previous online behaviors are significant and strong predictors of subsequent parenting strategies and not vice versa, corroborating the child effect. The parent and reciprocal effects were observed in the problematic smartphone-use domain, suggesting that the effects may differ for distinct behavioral domains. The effects of parental mediation extend beyond parental encouragement, implying that risk-prevention-related parenting is an effective means of guiding adolescents' online behaviors. Autonomy-relevant general parenting is closely related to active mediation and parental encouragement, while restrictive general parenting is closely related to restrictive mediation, suggesting a consistency between Internet-specific and general parenting strategies.

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Associations Between Internet-Specific Parenting, General Parenting, and Adolescents’ Online Behaviors: A Cross-Lagged Panel Network Analysis

Abstract

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