Parental Mediation of Children's Videogame Playing: A Comparison of the Reports by Parents and Children

Through an Internet survey of 536 parent-child dyads, the authors researched which mediation strategies parents used to regulate videogaming by their children (8-18 years). Factor analyses revealed that both parents and children distinguished three types of parental mediation: (1) "restrictive mediation", (2) "active mediation", and (3) "co-playing". These strategies are comparable with mediation types that were established in research about television. Comparing the parents' and children's reports it was found that both groups had highly congruent views about the application of mediation. Parental mediation of videogaming was most strongly predicted by the child's age and the parents's game behavior. Furthermore, parents applied more restrictive and active mediation when they feared negative behavioral effects and more often co-played with their children when they expected positive social-emotional effects of gaming. (Contains 6 tables and 1 note.)