The Role of the Family and the Social Environment

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Kids in this age group spend more and more time with media on their own. They also join new social groups (in school or in their free time activities). They might get recommendations for different kinds of media than they have previously known. Both within the media and their social circles they might encounter information, news, or opinions that could be new or significantly differ from the ones they have. It is thus important that parents teach children how to evaluate information and the media. They can also help them regulate their screen media consumption and maintain a healthy balance.

The social environment (parents, siblings, peers, or other reference persons) influences not only content but also preferences. Parents' ability to alter childs' media consumption habits or the effects of media use has long-term socialization effects. To support children's development and reduce potential negative consequences of media use it is recommended to use some type of parental mediation strategies. In the next section, you will find instructions on how to learn more about various types of parental mediation strategies.

Learn More

As an introduction to the topic, watch the video: #GoodDigitalParenting Episode 1 where you can see a family commenting on their media consumption. The creator of this video is the Family Online Safety Institute website (www.fosi.org). Go to their website and pay special attention to the section Tools and Resources for Parents. Choose one of the articles or tool sheets that you could introduce to the parents. We especially recommend covering some of the terms from the Media Literacy flashcard deck. These can help parents to get acquainted with the most important terms and strengthen their own understanding of media literacy and digital skills. The Media Literacy flashcard deck does not differentiate between misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation. Look at the picture depicting types of information disorder in the article Disinformation and Manipulation to understand the difference.

Watch the video lesson What's Real Online? Focus on the possible strategies for information verification that are mentioned here. Visit the website tool TinEye that is mentioned in the video and check out how to use it.

To learn more about regulation and how children who use digital media can benefit from it, watch the video The Problem with Parents, Kids, and Social Media. Media regulation is also linked to parental control tools. The goal of parental control is not to prevent children from the consumption of digital media altogether. It should first and foremost help ensure children's safety. Read the article Parental controls to learn about measures that parents can take. Read the basic guidelines called Set up kids' tech devices with safety settings.

Parental control is not the one and only sufficient way to help children stay safe and at the same time get the most out of their media use. Parental mediation strategies are important as well. Read Parental Mediation Strategies & Media Education Practices to learn types of mediation strategies and formulate recommendations for parents. Focus on parental mediation common for young/preadolescent children.

Exercise

Visit the Parental Controls website on internetmatters.org. At the bottom of the page, you can find a dropdown menu for various types of media platforms. The goal is for you to choose from the menu listing “Smartphones and other devices” some of the devices. Read about the possible ways of parental control implementation and safety settings on the device that you chose.

Answer these questions for yourself:

What parental control settings options did you not know about?
Do you or someone you know have any experience with safety settings? What are they?
How would you talk to children about safety settings and parental control?

After watching the video What's Real Online? try using printscreen to verify some of the images used in this video via the website TinEye.

What you learn in this course

Clarify the influence of legal guardians/parents on the media use behaviour of children in this age group and correctly name influencing factors.
Explain why the influence of parents is high and why. They can identify statements on the influence of legal guardians/parents as true or false.
Explain how the social environment and other reference persons (educators, friendships) have an impact on the usage behaviour and preferences of this age group.

Get ready: Tips for MediaParent consultants

The parental control can help provide safety for children when they use media and digital technologies independently. It can also help the parents become more aware of what online activities their children could and could not engage in. However, it is important to stress that parental control is not a quick fix that can or should substitute for media education. It is important that children learn how to make sense of their media experiences, and understand the (un)reliability of certain media. This requires that parents themselves exercise their own media literacy skills. Use the parents' evening to encourage parents to learn about media, media literacy, and current related trends so that they have a common ground when opening a conversation with their children.