Using Media Technology as a Pacifier: Relationships with Parent’s Confidence in Child Raising

• In Event: The Parent's Voice in the CAM Space

Abstract

Using an online questionnaire among 516 parents (children between 1 and 12 years) this study aimed to measure the extent that parents see media as a useful babysit in childrearing; the underlying needs that parents perceive; and which factors predict the use of media as a babysit, in particular, the parent’s confidence in childrearing. Key-findings are that only a minority of the parents (five to 34%) agree to use media as a pacifier. Moreover, parents use media to fulfil their own needs (e.g., instrument for better eating or sleeping, or to take time off) but mostly primarily because of their child’s needs (keep them occupied, reward or punish them). Parents low in parenting self-efficacy and who lack support of their partner and are confronted with child developmental problems are most apt to turn to media devices and fulfil the parent’s need for relief.

Author

• Peter Nikken, ESHCC / Windesheim U