Accounting for parental support for children’s learning online – inequalities matter, but so do skills and attitudes

With children growing up in ever-changing conditions in the digital age, digital parenting becomes more crucial than ever before. The predominant focus for parents, policy-makers, and researchers has long been on minimizing the risk of harm. Yet the swift transition to children’s online learning during lockdown caught many off guard. Children from disadvantaged families struggle to get online due to a lack of device or internet connectivity. Safety issues such as online child pornography are also in the spotlight. For www.parenting.digital, Dongmiao Zhang and Sonia Livingstone discuss the difficulties of digital parenting and how to close the digital divide by supporting less-educated parents and those from lower socio-economic status households.