Being a good digital parent: representations of parents, youth and the parent–youth relationship in expert advice

Social concern about online behaviour and safety of children and youth has increased dramatically in the last decade and has resulted in an abundance of parenting advice on ways to manage and protect children online. The cultural context in which this is happening is one characterised by intensive parenting norms, heightened risk awareness, and growing concerns about the effects of ‘over-parenting’, especially in the teenage years. Using contemporary advice to parents on managing adolescents’ digital experiences, this study investigates the ways that parenting, youth and the youth–parent relationship are depicted. Parental roles, in this material, are portrayed as instrumental and pedagogical while youth are assumed to lack agency and judgement. Intensive parenting expectations are extended as parents face advice to be both highly vigilant agents of surveillance and trusted confidantes of their children, with an overall goal of shaping children’s subjectivity in ways that allow them to become self-governing.