Is that appropriate? Parental judgements about the risks and opportunities of teenagers’ digital media use

The notion of inappropriateness is vague and subjective, yet often used by teachers, cyber safety educators, the media and other authority figures to highlight online material and behaviours which may pose a risk to children. For many parents, the boundaries between appropriate and inappropriate uses of digital media can be blurry and do not always align with the cyber safety advice. For www.parenting.digital, Catherine Page Jeffery discusses her research on how parents make judgements about appropriateness showing that they are struggling to navigate between what might enhance or disrupt their child’s development.