Reducing parent-adolescent conflicts about mobile phone use: The role of parenting styles

Abstract

This study seeks to understand the role of parenting styles in reconciling parent-adolescent conflict about adolescents’ mobile phone use, through an examination of the effects of adolescents’ mobile phone use intensity, parenting styles, and their interaction effects on the conflicts. Multi-stage cluster sampling was used to collect a representative sample of 751 middle school students in an eastern province of China. The results indicated a positive relationship between the intensity of adolescents’ mobile phone use and parent-adolescent conflict about mobile phone use. Parental demandingness was related to more conflict, whereas parental responsiveness was related to less conflict. Moreover, moderation analyses revealed that the relationship between the intensity of adolescents’ mobile phone use and parent-adolescent conflict varied based upon the degree of parental demandingness and parental responsiveness. Theoretically, this study contributes to the literature on associations between parenting style and parent-adolescent conflict. Findings from this study provide parents with knowledge to reduce conflict with their children regarding mobile phone use.

Keywords

Mobile phone use parenting style parent-adolescent conflict

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