Introduction

How do parents’ ideas concerning how to parent more generally influence how they intervene in their children’s experience of the digital world? And what are the subsequent dilemmas involved in trying to implement these ideals, including adapting them as children grow older? This Spanish qualitative study aims to explore these questions, especially in relation to issues of children’s privacy, parents developing trust in their children and managing their children’s transition to greater autonomy.

Parental approaches to mediating the digital world

The parental mediation literature focuses on how parents respond to the particular challenges that media pose for their children. That body of work must be seen against a backdrop of a long history of concerns about different media (^{Critcher, 2008}), which nowadays is most clearly manifest in the contemporary risk agenda associated with the internet (Mascheroni & ^{Haddon, 2015}). This agenda covers fears about children’s excessive use, the content children may access, whom they might come into contact with and how they might behave (their conduct online) (^{Livingstone, Haddon, & Görzig, 2012}). Although, this list highlights how parents confront the possible negative influences of the digital, ^{Clarke (2011}) points out that this reflects parental mediation analysis’ links with the media effects tradition, noting in contrast that some writers have pointed out how parents see benefits in children’s experience of media. In fact, nowadays more academic attention has been given to the opportunities for children when engaging in the digital world (^{Livingstone, Ólafsson, Helsper, Lupiáñez-Villanueva, Veltri & Folkvord, 2017}; ^{Zaman, Nouwen, Vanattenhoven, de Ferrerre, & Van Looy, 2016}).

Originally, typologies of parental mediation strategies were developed in relation to how parents managed their children’s experience of television (e.g. ^{Austin, 1993}). These typologies were than adapted to cover how they intervene in children’s experience of the digital world more generally (e.g. ^{Clark, 2013}; ^{Livingstone & Helsper, 2008}; Livingstone, ^{Mascheroni, Dreier, Chaudron, & Lagae, 2015}; ^{Mesch, 2009}). They now include such strategies as talking about with children about the digital world, or engaging in it with children (active mediation), making and policing rules about such aspects as ‘screen time’ (restrictive mediation) and parental surveillance of their children’s internet use (monitoring) (Livingstone et al, 2012)

Empirical research has shown how parental mediation changes with the age of the child. Some studies have noted that parents specifically use less intrusive strategies, such as restrictive mediation and online monitoring, as children grow older, instead asking their children to tell them about their use and mediating through being near-by (^{Glatz, Crowe, & Buchanan, 2018}; ^{Lee, 2012}; ^{Livingstone & Helsper, 2008}; Padilla- Walker, Coyne, Fraser, Dyer, & Yorgason, 2012; ^{Sonck, Nikken, & Haan, 2013}). Yet other research points to how parents prefer to communicate with their children and get involved in their online activities (^{Symons, Ponnet, Walrave, & Heirman, 2017}). Hence, the details of the evidence are a little mixed, but overall some change in how parents approach their role as children age is evident.

If parental mediation assumes media pose special questions, and parental responses must to some extent be particular to media, different writings about parenting in effect play down that specialness. For example, writings about parental styles such as authoritarian, authoritiative, permissive and neglectful parenting, explore different ways in which parents ‘parent’ more generally, which might in turn have a bearing on how they approach media (^{Eastin, Greenberg, & Hofschire, 2006}). Other work that also implies a continuity of parenting from other aspects of children’s lives takes into account how parental responses change as children grow older. The aspects that are the focus in this article relate to changes in parental trust as children age, children’s demands for rights to privacy as they get older, and parental management of children’s transition to adulthood.

As regards trust, ^{Erickson, Wisniewski, Xu, Carrol, and Rosson (2016}) found that one of the reasons why mediation may change with age is that parents have more trust in an older adolescents’ knowledge and ability to confront problematic situations, feeling they are savvy enough to avoid any type of danger. Reflecting this, ^{Padilla-Walker et al. (2012}) even suggest deference as a parenting strategy, referring to parents decision not to intervene and instead give autonomy to their children because they trust them and expect them to act more responsibly as they grow up. Retaining that trust is also important because it is related to greater adolescent self-disclosure (^{Kerr, Stattin, & Trost, 1999}; ^{Tilton-Weaver, 2014}), which is of particular interest where this is the main source of knowledge that parents have about the activities of their children online.

In the case of privacy, various studies show how children expect and sometimes claim more rights to privacy as they grow older, as part of the very process of becoming more autonomous. Adolescence is a transitory stage in which children start defending their own spaces of intimacy, which, according to ^{Finkenauer, Engels, and Meeus’s (2002}) analysis, changes the balance of relations within the family, and can generate tensions and clashes with parents, manifest also in tensions around ICT use (^{Haddon, 2015}). For example, perceived excessive control of ICTs that entails violations of privacy could provoke conflicts with parents and a loss of trust (^{Haddon, 2015})). In fact, quantitative research on broader adolescent-parent relationships support this as ^{Hawk, Keijsers, Hale, and Meeus (2009}) found an association between intrusive supervision and negative relationships between parents and their adolescent children.

Thirdly, any change in parental interventions can also reflect parents’ expectations of their own role in managing, even encouraging, their children's passage towards greater independence as they get older. For example, Maccoby (as cited in ^{Collins, Laursen, Mortensen, Luebker, & Ferreira, 1997}) proposed that parental monitoring of autonomous action is part of the regulatory strategies that support the gradual transition from parental mediation to autonomy and self-regulation. The parental deference strategy suggested by ^{Padilla-Walker et al. (2012}) is also consistent with the proposal of negotiating with their children, giving them more leeway and having confidence in their judgement as part of that process (see also ^{Baumrind, 2005}; Nafus & Tracey, 2002).

In fact, the above examples relating to changing parental trust, children’s privacy and managing children’s autonomy may refer to general principles but they are all taken from research specifically on mediation of the digital world. They can be seen as parental ideals concerning ‘good parenting’, as part of their ethnotheories (^{Harkness and Super (1992}) about parenting - sometimes implicit general beliefs, that are intimately linked to behavioural practices but which often go unnoticed - including parents’ expectations of what should change as children grow older (^{Parra & Oliva, 2006}). While these may draw upon broader discourses about ‘good parenting’ (^{Clarke, 2011}), part of the social construction of parenthood, the notion of ethnotheories recognises parents nevertheless have some agency in this process.

If the above captures some parenting ideals, there is still the question of why parents’ ethnotheories in general can become out of line with their particular practices. For example, in the case of television, ^{Nuñez- Ladeveze and Pérez Ornia (2002}) described how some parents said that their children should watch television only when an adult was present, but then the parents put a television in their children’s room. In other words, they were concerned about their children seeing certain content, but they did nothing to avoid this. These authors used the term ‘pragmatic dissonance’ to refer to inconsistencies between normative criteria (what parent say they as parents should do) and the actual behaviour of parents when mediating television use. This concept has its roots in the notion of cognitive dissonance developed by ^{Festinger (1957}) regarding the discomfort that occurs in the individual when faced with the discrepancy between pre-existing knowledge and opinions and new situations and information received that contradicts them. Hence, the main aim of this article is to understand the issues that can arise when parents actually try to implement their general parental ideals in the case of media, taking into account how children respond to this.

Method

Research on parental mediation in the digital sphere has increased significantly in recent years, and while the majority of this work has been quantitative there have been more and more qualitative studies (e.g. ^{Mesch, 2009}; ^{Haddon & Vincent, 2015}; ^{Shin, 2015}; ^{Zaman et al., 2016}; ^{Symons et al., 2017}) including ones in Spain (López. & Haddon, 2018; ^{Bertau-Rojas, Aierbe-Randiaran, & Oregui-González, 2018};Torrecillas- Lacave, Vázquez-Barrio, & Monteagudo-Barandalla, 2017). However, these have not specifically focused on how parental interventions reflect ethnotheories from beyond the digital sphere. Hence, this study uses a qualitative approach to explore parents’ approaches to parenting and the problems they face, while specifically paying attention to the continuities from more general parenting.

^{Alonso (1998}) points out that in-depth interviews enable researchers to explore the ‘ideal behaviour of the concrete individual’, made possible because ‘the process of signification is produced by the fact that the speech is likely to be updated in a corresponding practice’ (p.71). Since the interviewees provide an interpretation of their experience beyond the systematic description of behaviour, the in-depth interview allows us to extract information about the representations associated with situations experienced by the interviewees. Consequently, this method was used to examine the attitudes, beliefs, desires and also experiences that lay behind parents mediating strategies in relation to mobile devices.

Procedure

The interviews were conducted by the Spanish authors of this article. They were carried out between June and September 2017 in the interviewees’ homes. When possible, both parents were interviewed together (6), but in most cases only the father (4) or mother (10) was interviewed. The interviews lasted between 33 and 78 minutes.

Parents were asked to refer to the children who were within the range of ages being studied but they inevitably made some comparisons with younger and older siblings if they had them.

Prior to the interviews, the participants were informed about the goals of the study, the participants’ rights, and the confidentiality of the information. The interviews were semi-structured, using an interview schedule with broad guiding questions. The interviews were recorded and the data were transcribed (268 pages).

Thematic analysis was then applied to the qualitative data (^{Braun & Clarke, 2013}), which was labelled, organised, and analysed according to the different topics and categories derived from the research questions.

Only, but all of, the Spanish authors participated in the early stages of reviewing and categorising the data since the transcriptions were in Spanish. This involved first reading the transcripts several times and taking notes and discussing some general ideas related to the topic mentioned by the participants were collected. Next, a file with the thematic criteria and related categories of comments that were derived from the research questions and literature review was established. Pertinent segments of the transcripts were coded into each category or else generated a new category. The process required returning on several occasions

to the original transcripts to verify that the interpretation of a segment of significance was being properly interpreted. The categories were refined as the analysis of the data progressed. The first drafts of the analysis were translated into English and reviewed by the second author of the article (a native English- speaking researcher), who as an ‘outsider’ could provide feedback on this process, e.g. identifying problems of interpretation, asking if certain types of data were available.

When exemplifying points with excerpts from interviews participants have been given false names in order to preserve the anonymity of the interviewees.

Results

Discussion

Parents’ general ethnotheories about their role provides some insight into why their parental interventions change with age. They reflect broader parenting ideals as these Spanish parents consider themselves to be responsible for their children’s online activities and in this sense do not differentiate between the mediation of digital media’s use and parenting in general. In many ways, their statements about their overall approach to parental mediation reflects the themes identified in the literature about the managed move to autonomy as children grow older, and the increasing importance of trust. As noted by ^{Collins et al. (1997}), parents in principle often want adolescents to confront and learn from conflict situations, taking responsibility for their own online behaviour and making decisions. Consistent with the above, and in line with the results of ^{Erickson et al. (2016}), these parents say that in general and in relation to the digital world they have more trust in an older adolescents’ knowledge, feeling that they are smart enough to avoid any kind of danger. Within this overall understanding of parent-child relations, parents ideally also expect children to play a specific role in this process - disclosing potential problems. In the case of the digital world, and matching the findings of ^{Symons et al. (2017}), the children in this Spanish study are expected to reveal their online behaviour and experiences, so that parents acquire a greater knowledge of life online in order to identify children’s involvement in problematic situations.

However, when looking at the problems of implementing their parenting ideals, a slightly different picture can emerge. There can be a discrepancy, noted in the literature review, between what parents ideally would like to do and what can happen in practice. These dilemmas are now explored in more depth in relation to the key themes of this article: privacy, trust and managed transition to autonomy

Privacy, of more exactly privacy from parents, raised a fundamental dilemma noted by some parents that it contradicts pressure to monitor children. This study shows there is scope for exploring how parents try to reconcile these demands and how that involves a changing calculation as children age. More specifically, there is the question of ‘privacy in relation to what’, as shown in the case of the parents who did not monitor their child’s messages but checked her location. The case of the parent responding to received inappropriate content illustrates how privacy is often not judged in isolation from other parental imperatives - another hypothetical example, might be the pressure to intervene if cyberbullying had been discovered. This tension between different parental duties also underlined how parents and children could prioritise the competing demands differently. Reflecting on the section discussing parental ideals, privacy could be granted if things appeared to be going well. But this raises questions about children meeting conditions for privacy. This may involve an assessment of their maturity more generally but also perhaps more specifically poses the question of what children may have to do to earn privacy, in this particular case by exhibiting self-disclosure. Finally, the case of children questioning parental authority underlines how it may not be a case of parents ‘granting’ privacy, but the latter have no choice if children resist parental interventions and demand a right to personal space.

Trust proved to be equally problematic. When discussed by parents as an ideal, it was framed as whether or not they trusted their children. But their later hesitations suggested that this is not a binary choice. There may be degrees of trust and one parent’s comments about the future (‘The day I distrust her…’) indicate that trust may not given once and for all: it may involve an ongoing calculation on the part of the parent (and maybe ongoing ‘work’ on the part of the child to retain that trust). Like the question of ‘privacy in relation to what’, there may be the equivalent different types of trust. In the section on ideals some parents referred to trusting their children’s competence (i.e. trust in children’s evaluation of what encounter in the digital world, and ability to manage it). But those same discussions of ideals indicate we also have trusting children in follow (i.e. internalise) parental guidance. Or even if their children disagree with that guidance and ‘go their own way’ (captured also be ‘it’s his decision’), making different choices from what parents advise, there may still be a type of parental trust in children’s ability to learn, to be reflexive and to cope. As in the case of privacy, there are questions to explore about the conditions for trust or lack of it: as when parents expressed disappointment with children’s past actions. In particular, there was the failure of some children to meet parental expectations of self-disclosure as when parents think that their children may lie, cheat, behave in a more reserved fashion or hide something - which itself can be taken as a sign that leads parents to believe something has happened and that they have to intervene more directly¹. Finally, the example of perceiving children to have greater technical competence means that, like privacy, parents sometimes feel they have little choice but to trust their children.

Lastly, we have the element of managing independence. Certainly, there were signs of this intention, when parents talked of encouraging children to try out the digital world, not to be scared, where part of growing up involved learning from experience. Perhaps ‘manage’ is the key word here, stressing parents’ views of their own role, their agency, in this process. When discussing parental ideals, these Spanish parents made limited reference to negotiation with children, what happens when the children try to assert their agency, despite claims that nowadays there is there is more negotiation because of the de-traditionalization of the family (^{Giddens, 1991}; Williams and Williams, 2005). If anything, in this study when the children had different ideas there were examples of conflict, parents trying to re-assert authority, or giving up engagement with their children. There is, therefore, scope for further work on the extent to which in their parenting ideals parents think about the role of negotiation (within limits) as being part of the way to enable children to become more independent.

Conclusion

Although this qualitative study was conducted in only one country, Spain, given some overlapping observations in other studies, the parental perceptions, comments and actions documented in this sample are probably not country specific. Admittedly, this study is limited in that it was conducted with parents only, given it was trying to understand their perspective. However, the children’s interpretations might have added some further insights (^{Clark 2011}), for example, in term of how they feel about their parents’ general approach to parenting (exemplified in a ^{Clark, 2009}), as well as how they see issues like parents’ expectations of self-disclosure. Meanwhile, when parents were asked about their ethnotheories in particular there is the possibility of social desirability biases, given the very positive overtones of that first part of the findings section on parental ideals. Lastly, there is always scope for future research to address these issues and explore a range of factors - e.g. socio-demographics of parents and children - that may have a bearing on the details of the process described here. With those caveats, these findings are taken to contribute to that more general understanding of the motivations behind and dilemmas relating to parental interventions in the digital lives of their children as the latter age.

Rather than focusing on strategies of parental interventions that are specific to media, as documented in much of the parental mediation literature, the starting point for this article is more general parental enthotheories about parenting, about their own role, their expectations, their ideals, and how plan to handle the fact of children ageing. This also informs parents’ approach to their children’s experience of the digital world. Against this backdrop, which stresses the continuities from parenting in other domains of children’s live, the focus has been on elaborating the nature of the dilemmas parents face when trying to implement their ideals, dilemmas which themselves are also to be found in other aspects of parent-child relationships. The themes of privacy, trust and a managed transition to autonomy have been addressed at some length in the literature reviewed, but in this analysis the emphasis, illustrated by the empirical material, is on what further questions might be asked, what dimensions considered.

Acknowledgements

This article arose from the project Social networks, adolescents and young people: Media convergence and digital culture, funded by the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, Spain [CSO2016-74980- C2-2-R]