Parental Mediation of Children's Video Game Playing: A Similar Construct as Television Mediation.

Through an internet-survey of 536 parent-child dyads, the authors researched which mediation strategies parents used for their children's (8-18 years) video gaming. As in previous research on television mediation, principal factor analyses revealed the same strategies for parents and children: 'restrictive mediation', 'evaluative mediation' and 'conscious co-playing'. Mediation was most strongly predicted by the age of the child and the game behavior of the parents. Furthermore, parents were more restrictive and evaluative when they feared negative behavioral and attitudinal effects. Parents who were inclined to game together with their children expected positive social-emotional effects of gaming. Playing 'inappropriate' games mostly occurred when parents were not very restrictive. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]