Digital parenting or ‘just’ parenting?

Has ‘digital parenting’ simply become another dimension of parenting, as ‘traditional’ parenting spills over into the ‘online’ world, with social skills, sexuality education, a healthy balance in children’s activities, social and emotional learning, and values such as respect all be transposed to online settings? Martin Schmalzried, a Senior Policy and Advocacy Officer at the Confederation of Family Organisations in the European Union (COFACE), explores the dilemmas of modern parenting. His piece follows a special workshop¹ convened by the Media Policy Project and Parenting for a Digital Future on ‘Families and “screen-time”: challenges of media self-regulation’ and the publication of a new policy brief about families and “screen time”, authored by Alicia Blum-Ross and Sonia Livingstone.