At Play

This chapter analyzes transcendent parenting and young people’s social interactions. As parents are deeply concerned about their children’s contact risks, they can and do become heavily involved in their children’s peer interactions online and offline. Parents can use the digital trail of their children’s mobile media communication, install parental control apps in their children’s phones, or confiscate their children’s phones and scan the phones’ content to gain insights into their children’s social interactions to offer guidance. They may even confront the children for behaviors they deem inappropriate, or advocate on behalf of their children in disputes involving other children and their parents and even teachers. Such parental intervention, however, can deny young people valuable opportunities for learning to interpret social situations, to acquire greater autonomy in problem-solving, and to manage their online and offline personae.