diation strategies, two considerations. At first, as the first fieldwork showed already, restrictive strategies are usu- ally put into place to prevent risks that parents believe may happen. Some- times however, restrictive strategies are chosen in reaction to an incident or a change in the child’s behaviour. Those extracts from various national reports illustrate this element. Some time ago, [girl, aged 8] played Angry Birds and without realising it, she purchased several golden birds, each costing about 40-45 EUR. After this in- cident, her father locked the tablet with a fingerprint and she can no longer use it on her own. Through this incident, [girl, aged 8] also learned that every
time an application asks for the number of the credit card or other payment, she must close it or tell her parents. (Bulgar- ian national report, p.13)
With regard to having rules and enforc- ing them, mum and dad feel they are generally more strict now because Nao- mi started using digital media more fre- quently and because Irene is sometimes too absorbed by WhatsApp. (Dutch na- tional report, p.8)
Only one parent mentioned using an app that monitors which websites the children visit and sends a weekly report via email and one mother uses the built- in restrictions in YouTube’s settings. They started using this after their children stumbled onto too violent or sexual con- tent. The most used strategy for monitor- ing what content the child watches is to be around when the children are using digital media and simply keep an eye out. (Belgian national report, p.43-44) [Bulgarian father, 28] regularly moni- tors what [Bulgarian boy, 9] is doing online. Some time ago, one of his friends sent him pictures of naked women. [Bulgarian boy, 9] talked with him and told him not to accept and open files with similar inappropriate content. Spas was also told never to use other peo- ple’s smartphones, after he played games on his grandfather’s phone and caused a significantly increased phone bill. They also, to some extent, illustrate that children learn from their mis- takes in the trial-error path they fol- low to discover the possibilities of their devices.
Secondly, as the researcher look- ing at the Spanish part of the study remarked, parents may suffer more from the norms they have established
for managing the digital life of the children than children themselves. At the age of 8-9 children under- stand the norms and can explain them clearly although they may actively disagree with and resist those norms at times. Children may feel frustration for norms and create tensions around this between children and parents but children do not seem to have the grief or bitterness that parents report. In comparison to the first round of field- work, parental mediation tends to be more explicit as children have grown in their cognitive capacities and their understanding. In some families, for instance, strategies to anticipate and to inform the child in advance about time exposure or some other limita- tions have been developed. Adults be- lieve that these announcements help to avoid arguments and frustrations with the child later on. (Spanish na- tional report, p.38)
Tendency to evolve from restrictive strategies to more supportive and more permissive approaches
Beyond the influence of socio-eco- nomic background of the social norms and representation of the ‘good behaviour’ as reported in the introduction of this section, we report here the noticeable differences in pa- rental views and mediation that may account for societal differences at a larger scale. Even though the qualita- tive nature of our data does not allow generalisation, we consider still them being interesting to report and useful to see tendencies across the collected data.
In the sample, parents in Spain, Por- tugal, Switzerland, Croatia, Slovenia,
Today, they share this role with school teachers who are entrusted with the supportive and active part of the me- diation.
Among Russian families, in general, parental mediation of children’s dig- ital technologies use has become more permissive but also less active. Those parents consider that children, being older, can benefit from more freedom online and less control time limits. They also tend to ignore the situation in which children break the devices whereas in the first round of inter- views, keeping the integrity of (costly) devices was the goal of some parental roles. Most parents also do not think it necessary any more to sit with their children or to monitor their use. Par- ents seem less interested in controlling their children online and their usage of devices. Some consider monitoring not needed anymore as their children now use the device in such a way they will not break the device or delete data. (Russian national report, p.15) We note as well that the free time for Russian children seems to have shrunk considerably compared to the other cases of the sample as school du- ties seem to have grown in importance and volume.
Bulgarian parents adopted a more permissive approach while increasing their monitoring strategies. Their typ- ical view is that children should not be restricted and deprived, because for them using digital devices represents a good for their development and nu- merous advantages they can benefit from. Parents’ position has evolved since the first interview and they now prefer an open and honest dialogue to prohibitions, while at the same time they monitor more closely their chil- Belgium rely in majority still on re-
strictive strategies even though some invested more in supportive and ac- tive strategies. Researchers’ accounts are coherent between those parts of the study although with this tendency being less perceptible in Slovenia and Croatia.
Parents in the part of the sample from Bulgaria, Russia, Malta, The Nether- lands seem to evolve from restrictive to permissive approaches in general while at the same time most monitor more closely their children’s use. Anal- ysis shows more variability regarding parental motivation behind those evo- lutions linked to their particular local context.
In Malta, researchers report that par- ents still supervise their children’s use of digital technologies, but allow them more freedom. They consider that their children no longer need their permission to access the inter- net as they find them older and more mature than the year before. They evaluate that their children can exer- cise more self-regulation in their use of digital technologies. They do not feel the necessity any more to restrict their children’s use. Parents discussed and negotiated with the children their use of digital technologies, i.e. which videos to watch, and which apps to download. Compared to the first fieldwork, parents seem more confi- dent in their mediation. They seem to show as well a major homogene- ity of views and strategies in between families. This change is clearly to put in relation with the major education plan introduced in 2017 that saw the arrival of tablets for each child aged 8 in class. Parents are not the sole me- diator of their children’s use of tablets.
dren’s use. Nonetheless, researchers note also that children’s increase of autonomy and self-confidence can ac- count only partially for A noticeable decrease in time and diversity of joint online activities between parents and children.
In families from the Netherlands, in comparison to the previous year, par- ents generally show more lenience. As the children grow older, parents recognize that their children become more skilled and autonomous and they take their developing interests seriously. Furthermore, they find it important that children learn how to use digital media independently in a sensible way. What other parents of children the same age do also matters. (Dutch national report, p.2)
In the beginning we held off because I preferred her not doing it, but at a cer- tain stage you have to slowly allow more so she understands how things work. Mother aged 44 of a girl (8) and a boy (6) - The Netherlands
Croatian families adopt in general restrictive strategies. However, par- ticular change of context may be the occasion for more unattended and permissive use. Indeed, the daily rou- tine of the Croatian children of the sample has changed dramatically in one year. When researchers first met them, most were in their last year of kindergarten. At the time of the sec- ond visit, they were attending the first grade of primary school and their daily schedule changed in such a way that they now spend more time alone than before and this time is often cor- related with the use of digital devices. ‘Parents feel they cannot ban the use of devices during this time because
they think children need it to be oc- cupied and not to worry or be scared if they start thinking about the fact that they are home alone. Nonethe- less, parents try to instruct their chil- dren on the devices they can use or the activities that they perform in those times.’ (Croatian national report, p. 20) Actually, those times are real times of freedom for the children who try to get over the restrictions of their par- ents by different means. Interestingly, the researcher noted that Croatian children gain most of their new and updated skills in this particular time. We conclude this section on two indi- vidual cases that we found respectively interesting and important to report. Interestingly, researchers reported this case of a family in Belgium ‘us- ing no rules and restrictions and where the children attach less value on to digital technologies. They feel like it is nothing special and part of their normal everyday life. Whereas in families where there are stricter rules, researchers noted the children giving something special and highly valued to digital technology, and sometimes screen time is used as a reward’. (Bel- gian national report, p.43)
It seems that we touch here an ‘egg- and-chicken’ paradox. Is it really the absence of rules and a permissive ap- proach that leads to a medium interest of the children in digital technology or, may it be the other way around, medium interest in technologies from a child allows for more permissive and open approaches? Are strict restrictive rules inducing children’s interest in digital technology or strong interest of children in digital activities demand for more restrictive strategies from
their parents? We leave the reader with the question.
Finally, let us make a consideration regarding the limits that open and permissive strategies may have if not accompanied by a minimum of reg- ulation and monitoring measures, based on reported case from Switzer- land.