Currently accepted at: JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting
Date Submitted: Oct 20, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Oct 20, 2025 - Dec 15, 2025
Date Accepted: Oct 5, 2026
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
This paper has been accepted and is currently in production.
It will appear shortly on 10.2196/86177
The final accepted version (not copyedited yet) is in this tab.
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Traditional parenting styles and online parental mediation strategies: building a global parenting
ABSTRACT
Background:
The expansion of digital technologies has transformed the family environment, demanding new strategies from parents to guide and protect their children’s Internet use. While the literature widely discusses parental mediation, few studies analyze how traditional parenting styles are related online parental mediation (OPM) strategies and how parents’ age moderates these relationships.
Objective:
To examine the effects of three traditional parenting styles—inductive, rigid, and indulgent—on six OPM strategies, considering the moderating role of parents’ age.
Methods:
A cross-sectional analytical study was conducted with 672 parents (83.9% mothers) of children aged 9–14 years from 29 schools in 10 Spanish regions. Participants completed the Scale of Rules and Demands (ENE-P) and the EU-Global Kids Online Parental Mediation Questionnaire. Using 18 moderation models (PROCESS Model 1, bootstrapping with 5000 samples), we analyzed the predictive power of inductive, rigid, and indulgent parenting styles (predictors) on six OPM strategies—active mediation of Internet use (AMIU), active mediation of Internet safety (AMIS), child-initiated.
Results:
The inductive parenting style was positively related to all OPM strategies, and its effects were stronger among younger parents for AMIU (B = –.03, p < .01), AMIS (B = –.02, p = .04), and RM (B = –.01, p = .04). The indulgent style showed negative relationships with five OPM strategies (AMIU, AMIS, PM, TC, RM), while the rigid style showed no significant effects.
Conclusions:
Findings support the concept of global parenting, integrating offline and online parental regulation. Younger parents’ digital skills strengthen the positive effects of inductive parenting on Internet safety and autonomy. Programs should foster inductive strategies and enhance digital competence among older parents.
Citation
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Copyright
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