Engl. transl.: Parental Mediation of Digital Media Use Among Children Aged 3–8 from the Perspective of Parents’ Media Competence

Based on an analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data collected in 2018 from the Žilina region in Slovakia, this paper intends to examine the relationship between parental mediation and parental digital media competence within households of children aged three to eight. Parent participants were recruited through schools that reflect the geographic representation of the entire region. In addition to 517 surveys, six onsite interviews with parents and observations of children interacting with digital media were collected. The research findings show that almost 50% of the children studied have access to tablets and laptops. The use of these digital devices increases with age. Qualitative data found that age and other contextual factors played a crucial role in the type of parental mediation implemented at home while quantitative data showed a significant positive correlation between parent’s digital media competence and parental mediation behaviors such as enabling mediation, technical mediation, and monitoring

The findings demonstrate that Slovak parents of children under the age of 8 apply most frequently enabling mediation. Restrictive and technical mediation are used as well. "A strong correlation between mediation strategies suggests that if a parent applies one strategy s/he tends to apply other strategies as well. Similarly, the correlation between types of digital media competence can be interpreted in a way that these types are interrelated and developed simultaneously." The findings did not suggest a strong correlation between mediation strategies and parents’ digital media competence. The higher the digital media competence, the more likely parents are to spend time talking, facilitating, and processing their children’s digital media encounters. (translated by the coder)