ABSTRACT
From infancy, a parent’s inuence is felt in every aspect of a child’s life. The importance of parents in the development and maintenance of children’s well-being has led to the conclusion that “parenting is fundamental to the success of the human race” (Borkowski, Ramey, & BristolPower, 2002, p. ix). Because children spend more time with media than in any other activity, besides perhaps sleeping (Rideout, Foehr, & Roberts, 2010), parents’ role in children’s responses to media exposure is especially meaningful. Parents, scholars, and policymakers have devoted substantial eort to exploring how to both enhance the potentially positive eects of media exposure and prevent the potentially negative inuence of media exposure on children’s well-being (Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2005; Chakro & Nathanson, 2008). From this research we have learned that parental mediation – parent-child interactions about media – is perhaps the most important factor in shaping how children are aected by media exposure (Austin, Hust, & Kistler, 2009; Chakro & Nathanson, 2008; Nathanson, 2001).
