Maternal beliefs about television and parental mediation in a low income United States sample_2017.pdf

ABSTRACTLow-income children are at greater risk for excess screen time andnegative correlates associated with screen media use. The goal of thisstudy is to increase our understanding of low-income mothers’ beliefsand practices around their children’s television (TV) use (parentalmediation). We administered semi-structured interviews to 296 lowincomemothers of children ages four–eight years old in the UnitedStates. Five themes emerged from the qualitative analysis: (1) mothersare confident in restriction of TV content; (2) time limits are not asimportant as TV content and are only necessary in extreme situations;(3) mothers make meaning of child learning from TV content; (4)mothers identified individual differences in child TV overuse; and (5)mothers’ policy on TV during mealtime depends on how they believeTV to affect child mealtime behaviors and mothers’ mealtime goals.We discuss the implications of these themes for promoting parentalmediation in low-income families.