Multimethod assessment of parenting strategies for managing early adolescents’ social media use

J Res Adolesc. 2026 Mar;36(1):e70127. doi: 10.1111/jora.70127.

ABSTRACT

Parents influence their children’s media habits, yet parenting research has lagged behind the growing influence of social media. This study characterized how parents perceive and implement social media-specific strategies with early adolescents. A total of 102 parents of adolescents (ages 12-15), recruited from primary care clinics and online advertisements, completed baseline assessments, including parent-child interaction tasks and qualitative interviews. Parents completed 15 daily diary assessments of their social media-specific parenting strategies, including: communication, limit-setting, co-use, technical mediation, and monitoring. Quantitative results indicate nearly two-thirds of parents (64.8%) used at least four of the five strategies, with communication being the most frequent. Nearly all parents (96.6%) communicated with their adolescent about social media at least once during the 15-day study period, and the majority also reported using limit-setting (85.2%), co-use (84.1%), and nontechnical monitoring (71.6%), with a smaller proportion (44.3%) using technical mediation. Results of the parent-child interaction task indicate that parents discussed more risks of social media than benefits with their adolescents, and that teens were more likely to engage when parents provided a rationale for their viewpoints and encouraged teens to share their own perspectives. Qualitative results highlighted the range of strategies parents use and provided insight into how strategies were implemented. Overall, findings underscored the diversity and complexity of social media-specific parenting strategies.

PMID:41532305 | DOI:10.1111/jora.70127