Parental Mediation of Television Viewing in the Context of Changing Parent-Child Relationships in Belgium: A latent growth curve analysis in early and middle adolescence

Abstract

The present study analyzed long-term trends in parental mediation of adolescent television viewing and how this mediation related to changes in teenagers' attachment to their parents. A Belgian panel of early adolescents (n = 883) and of middle adolescents (n = 651) rated three times in three consecutive years how often their parents used restrictive mediation, instructive mediation, and social co-viewing to control their television viewing. The results showed that parental mediation is common during adolescence, even for twelfth graders. However, the latent growth curve analyses indicated that the use of each parental mediation strategy tends to decline throughout adolescence. In addition, parallel process latent growth curve models showed that the decreasing occurrence of instructive mediation and co-viewing is related to parental separation. In contrast, the declining incidence of restrictive mediation during adolescence is not related to parental separation.