Digital Parenting: Perceptions on Digital Risks

Abstract

Today, child rearing has become more complicated since the recent changes caused by digital technologies in daily lives of families. Digital media brings both new learning opportunities and risks for its consumers simultaneously. Especially, children and adolescents are susceptible for the digital risks. Parents are expected to have a mediating role for their children in adapting digital life. The purpose of the study was to investigate parents’ perceptions related to digital risks and on what aspects of digital media (risks or opportunities) they wanted to be trained. Seventy-nine parents (38 mothers and 41 fathers) of children aged 10 to 18 responded to survey on digital risks. 132 Dr. Öğr. Üye. Gamze İNAN-KAYA/Arş. Gör. Dr. Duygu MUTLU-BAYRAKTAR/Dr. Öğr. Üye. Özgür YILMAZ Parents’ perceptions related to the risks involved in the digital media were investigated by forced-choice and open-ended questions and the responses analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The results revealed that, parents had knowledge on digital risks and taking precautions against those risks. Besides, according to the findings from content analysis, parents utilized several parenting strategies and they needed to be educated on both risks and opportunities of digital media for their children.