DB 7 Schools, Peers, and Media Influences on Childhood Behavior and Beliefs

Do Australian children trust their parents more than peers when seeking support for online activities?

Lelia Green* and Danielle Brady

School of Communications and Arts, Edith Cowan University, Mount Lawley, Australia

This paper considers the relative importance of parents and peers in supporting Australian children’s use of the internet and whether those choices for support change with age and gender. The paper reports findings from AU Kids Online, a satellite study to EU Kids Online. Parents were found to be the primary support to Australian children using the internet, with peer support increasingly important as children get older. The potential of these two key socializing influences to minimize harm and build resilience is considered in the light of other studies on Australian family internet use.

Introduction

This paper reports findings from AU Kids Online, an Australian study, to examine

critically the structured management of children’s online experiences taking into account

two key influences on children’s behaviour, their parents and their peers. This is not to

imply that parents and peers are the only influences on children’s online activities. Schools

and teachers are important, as are policy makers, legislators, internet service providers and

hardware and software industries. However, it is typically parents who make the

technology available to their children, and who most influence the conditions under which

it is used. Even so, as children become older and move into their teenage years at

secondary school, peers and peer pressure become critical motivators and potential key

influencers of their online behaviour. Further, as more children begin accessing the

internet using mobile and out-of-home technologies, the issues of responsible self-

regulation and the active seeking of support in the face of challenging experiences become

more important if children are to develop into confident, resilient, internet-using adults.

The following research questions are addressed in this paper: what is the relative

contribution, and importance, to young people of their parents and peers in providing

support for their internet use? Is there evidence that these two socializing influences

change in contribution or importance during the eight years in which a child ages from 9 to

16 (inclusive)? Are there differences between how children and parents report on their

internet use experiences? Is there variability in the extent and type of mediation for

different gendered and different aged children?

Trust is a critical element in a functioning society. According to Rotenberg (1995, 713):

The survival of a society depends on whether it can successfully foster trust among its members. This goal is attained, in part, through the socialisation of trust, in which parents instil in their children trust in parents as well as other members of society.

However, trust is reciprocal, children needing to trust their parents have to feel trusted by

them as well as. Explaining that many of their child interviewees resented parents

monitoring their online activities, Livingstone and Bober (2004, 46) note that the children

q 2013 Taylor & Francis

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 2014

Vol. 28, No. 1, 112–122, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2013.854866

saw such oversight: ‘as an invasion of their privacy, expecting more trust and respect as

they get older [ . . . ] many children used metaphors such as having one’s pockets searched,

having one’s personal space invaded or being stalked’. For parents and children, trust is a

critical element in family life, particularly as a marker of parents’ respect for their

children’s growing maturity.

As the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s (ACMA) report, Media and

Communications in Australian Families (2007), notes ‘Trust plays an important part in how

families negotiate the use of electronic media and communications’ (ACMA 2007, 13).

Talking specifically about children’s online activities, the report comments that:

Most parents trust their child’s judgement about the internet and, at least some of the time, leave it up to him/her to choose what is done on the internet (83%). This includes two-thirds who trust their child’s judgement most of the time (66%). (ACMA 2007, 28)

What is underlined in this examination of ‘trust’ is that parents’ trust of their children’s

responsible internet use is part of their strategy for managing family use of digital

technologies. Further, there is some evidence that the online activities the child is trusted

with change over time reflecting, in particular, the age of the child.

The maturation of children between the ages of 9 and 16, from relative dependency in

primary school to relative autonomy in the upper years of high school, forms a major

element of adolescent and teen research, and of development psychology. Necessarily,

only the briefest outline of relevant research can be offered here. It should be noted that a

majority of the literature on parental influence with respect to peers relates to challenging

behaviours (e.g. Kobus 2003; Kiesner and Kerr 2004). Even so, it is clear that the influence

of peers serves a critical role in the natural and healthy maturation of the adolescent young

person. This important influence is strengthened by a two-way dynamic. First, young

people seek close friendships with peers who share their values and interests (Wentzel,

Barry, and Caldwell 2004) and, second, close friends’ attitudes and behaviours shape the

development of their peers (Ennett and Bauman 1994).

Adolescents often seek the chance to do something together. Thus, while online

activity in adult life is generally positioned as a solitary pursuit (given a single keyboard

and monitor), this need not be the case with young people: ‘Several friends may gather in

front of a screen in a bedroom’, note Livingstone and Bober (2004, 20), arguing that the

location of the computer does not necessarily dictate the context of its use. This sociability

of interaction is likely to increase as the internet is more frequently accessed through

location-independent smart hand-held devices.

Methods

This paper examines issues of trust arising between parents, children and peers primarily

by an analysis of the AU Kids Online study. Although conducted independently in

Australia, the methods modelled those of the EU Kids Online project as closely as possible

to facilitate comparisons. A stratified, random sample of 400 9–16 year olds who use the

internet, and one of their parents/carers, was interviewed between November 2010 and

February 2011. Samples were stratified by state and by metropolitan area/rest of state for

the larger states, with probability of selection proportionate to population. The primary

sampling units were drawn from all census collection districts in Australia. Addresses

were selected randomly from each randomly selected sample point using a Random Walk

procedure. At each address with a resident child aged 9–16, who met the criterion of

internet usage and agreed to interview, one child was randomly selected from all eligible

Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 113

children in the household on the basis of whichever eligible child had the most recent

birthday. Of the children interviewed in the 400 families, 195 were boys and 205 were

girls, and 222 were aged 9–12 and 178 were aged 13–16. Results are presented as the

percentage of all children who used the internet. Each table is annotated with the relevant

question number(s) from the original EU Kids Online survey (www.eukidsonline.net). The

main methodological difference between AU Kids Online and EU Kids Online was the

smaller sample size. Consequently, in this paper, results are only discussed if they differ by

10 percentage points or more, to ensure that they fall outside the margin of error at the 0.05

probability level. The AU Kids Online data were also collected about six months after the

European data.

Although predominantly concerning Australian children, this paper considers these

children in the context of the 25,142 children, from 25 countries, who participated in the

wider EU Kids Online study. The AU Kids Online survey is contextualized with a 2003–

2004 qualitative study of 26 families, The Internet in Australian Family Life (e.g.

Holloway, Green, and Quin 2004), and a report into Media and Communications in

Australian Families (ACMA 2007). Many of the specific features of online activity

changed between 2003 and 2011, including factors such as whether the internet is accessed

via a dial-up service, or via broadband; and whether a fixed line device is used or a

smartphone or other hand-held device. While the technology changes comparatively

swiftly, the dynamics around parents and their children, and the move from dependence

towards autonomy prefigured in the 9–16 age group and their reliance upon same-aged

friends, is a constant of western family life over the past half century. It is these dynamics,

in part, that are explored in the consideration of trust relationships between members of

peer groups, and between parents and children. In drawing upon multiple sources, a

multifaceted perspective is adopted which constructs the child as being a member of his/

her family of origin, as well as belonging to one or more peer circles and influenced by a

range of other stakeholders including extended family; teachers and the education system;

software and hardware developers and retailers; internet service providers; policy and law

makers; law enforcement officers; the media, communications and entertainment

industries; and others. It is accepted that engagement with the internet is an increasingly

complex behaviour with location of online access potentially ubiquitous in the developed

world, permitting sometimes unsupervised online engagement. A critical realist stance has

been taken to negotiate these complexities of viewpoint and perspective. Critical realism

accords importance to both ‘the real’ and ‘the constructed’, and conceptualizes human

agency as complex, and at times unpredictable, providing a useful framework for both

quantitative and qualitative research (Clark 2008). In privileging ‘reality’, critical realism

chooses to avoid simplifying explanations, preferring instead to acknowledge the

complex.

Results and discussion

Parent support

In the general sphere of internet use, children may welcome parental involvement without

necessarily experiencing it as parental support. Parents’ involvement might include active,

general help such as talking, sitting together or carrying out online activities together

(Livingstone and Helsper 2008). They might help with a specific task such as doing

something or finding something, giving an explanation or judgement about whether a

particular site is good or bad, making suggestions about appropriate behaviour online or

providing advice on how to deal with troubling online experiences. Sometimes this kind of

114 L. Green and D. Brady

assistance is termed as ‘positive mediation’, alongside restrictive strategies such as parents

setting rules about internet use. In the EU Kids Online survey, as replicated in AU Kids

Online, children and parents were asked purposely neutral questions about these different

areas of support for online use, beginning with: ‘Does your parent sometimes . . . [e.g. sit

with you while you use the internet]?’. The aim was to build up a picture of how parents

and children interacted while children used the internet.

More than 90% of Australian children who use the internet said their parents did one or

more of the mediation activities asked about, and 67% reported that their parents talk to

them about what they do online (Table 1). Younger children (9–12) were more likely to do

shared activities with their parents and more likely to have their parents stay nearby while

they were using the internet. According to the children who experienced it, having one or

more of their parents talking with them while they used the internet was an involvement

more likely to persist into their teens for boys than girls (Table 1).

The data suggest that maybe parents are a little more concerned about their younger

daughters’ online activities and, also, the online behaviour of their older sons. The ACMA

(2007, 131) study also found that parents were slightly more likely to give girls the

freedom to choose what they viewed on the internet (73% girls, 60% boys), and that

parents talk to their children about what they do on the internet, with 60% parents

reporting discussions around what their child did on the internet at other people’s houses,

at least some of the time (ACMA 2007, 29). In this study, it appeared that trust in a child’s

judgement increased with age, and was higher for girls (ACMA 2007, 29). Activities that

involved checking and restricting internet activity declined from 81% for parents of 8–15

year olds to 69% (16 year olds) and 51% (17 year olds).

While parents’ restriction of internet use declined as the child became older, the

parents said they felt managing their child’s online activities became more difficult. The

framing of the ACMA question as: ‘Would you say your child’s use of the internet is very

easy to manage, fairly easy, [etc] . . . ’ implied that a child’s internet use is something to be

managed. For 90% parents of younger children (8–12), this was felt to be very or fairly

easy, but the proportion saying this declined to 75% for 13–17 year olds (ACMA 2007,

105). It might be that the aspect of internet use of most ‘management’ concern to parents

relates to the amount of time spent online by their child:

Older teenagers spend almost five times as much time online than the younger children in the study [ . . . ] More parents have rules about when young people can use television, games and the internet than have rules about the content of those activities. (ACMA 2007, 7, 13)

Table 1. Australian parents’ active mediation of their child’s internet use, according to child.

% of children who say that their parent does . . .

9–12 years 13–16 years

Boys Girls Boys Girls All

Talk to you about what you do on the internet 68 70 69 59 67 Stay nearby when you use the internet 73 74 54 52 63 Encourage you to explore and learn things on the internet on your own

49 48 42 36 44

Sit with you while you use the internet 46 41 43 31 40 Do shared activities together with you on the internet

45 47 31 31 38

One or more of these 89 96 94 86 91

Note: QC327 (QC, Question for child respondent).

Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 115

However, parents do see the benefits of online engagement. Around one in three parents

felt that the internet allowed their child to ‘keep in touch with friends and what people are

talking about’ (ACMA 2007, 99).

Individual parents have different approaches to challenges around their children’s

internet use, depending upon a range of specific situational factors and circumstances.

In the Australian Research Council-funded qualitative research project, The Internet in

Australian Family Life (2002–2004), a single mother of a 17-year-old boy described his

earlier access to internet pornography and her contention that this was a transitory phase

unlikely to harm him:

It doesn’t bother me at all. If he wants to do that then he can do it because he’ll get sick of it and I think initially it was ‘let’s see what we can do’. I remember once, he called me in and says ‘Mum, come and look at her boobs’ and I looked at it and I said ‘it’s disgusting’ or something and walked away and he laughed his head off. But I’ve never come in [lately] and found him looking at that stuff . . . It’s just not something that I’m . . . really worried about. It’s up to him. (Holloway, Green, and Quin 2004)

The child’s account of his early exploration was consistent with his mother’s, and when

asked specifically whether he had visited adult sites on the internet he responded:

Like porn and stuff? Not really. I probably did when I was a bit younger but it’s not really very exciting. (Holloway, Green, and Quin 2004)

Valentine, Holloway, and Bingham (2000, 160) talk about the propensity of some adolescent

males to ‘negotiate their masculinity within the heterosexual economy of [their] peer group

social relations’. The situation is a fraught one for many parents. As Evans and Butkus

(1997, 68) note, ‘although parents still occupy the role of the initiated with regard to

sexuality, if they are uninitiated technologically then they lose the power base from which to

set the markers for progressive socialisation’. ACMA (2007, 14) found that:

Specific [internet] restrictions relating to adult or sexual content are more likely for those 13 and over, than for those under 13, and content-related arrangements of any sort about internet use are more often in place with 10–14 year olds than with younger or older children.

Comparing the accounts obtained in AU Kids Online survey, from the matched questions

to both parent and child, the answers from parents and children about parents’ active

mediation strategies did not always agree. There was 25–33% disagreement, depending

on the area (Table 2). Parents were more likely to take an overly positive view of their

influence (Table 2, column 3), for example in claiming shared activities (22%), than

their children (8%). It was significantly less likely that children would cite parental

mediation activities when their parents did not claim to use that mediation strategy

(Table 2, column 2).

Specific involvement by parents has the potential to keep children safe on the internet,

and this was acknowledged by their children. More than 90% parents did one or more of the

things asked about to actively mediate their child’s safety (Table 3). The most common

involvement was simply helping when something was difficult to do or find (75%), but

explaining why some websites are good or bad (74%) was also a favoured strategy.

According to their children, less than half of Australian parents suggested how they should

behave towards others online (44%), while 67% had helped them if something online

bothered them, and 64% had discussed ways they could respond to things that might bother

them online. Australian children apparently experience a similarly high level of parental

involvement as the children in EU Kids Online, where an average of 86% claim their parents

do one or more of the active mediation activities (Livingstone et al. 2011, 108).

116 L. Green and D. Brady

In the area of mediation with the aim of promoting internet safety, when children and

parents’ answers were compared, the apparent overestimation by parents (Table 4) was

much less marked than it was for their statements around shared involvement in internet

use more generally (Table 2). Both parents and children largely acknowledge the role

parents play in the area of safety.

Parents may choose to respond to the possible risks of online interaction in ways that

demonstrate and build trust. The Internet in Australian Family Life project included a

family with two teenage girls who had communicated with people online, who were not

known to the girls face-to-face, and who had suggested that the girls might want to meet up

with them. The mother explained her confidence in her daughters’ abilities to manage

online communication:

I suppose you just get a bit concerned about the chat lines and who they’re talking to sometimes but really they usually tell me [ . . . to 17-year old daughter in the room] ‘Like on the chat lines you, when, had that idiot [ . . . ] that one that was going to come over here’. Just some idiots on there. A lot of the kids are teenagers. I know Shani’s [14] gotten on there a few times on the chat line and there’s been obviously someone asking them lewd questions and she’s usually blocked them and cut them off. (Holloway, Green, and Quin 2004)

Table 2. Australian parents’ active mediation of their child’s internet use, according to an individual child and one of their parents/carers.

% of children who say that their parents sometimes . . .

Child no parent no

Child yes parent no

Child no parent yes

Child yes parent yes

Talk to you about what you do on the internet

4 5 29 62

Stay nearby when you use the internet 17 12 20 51 Encourage you to explore and learn things on the internet on your own

25 9 31 35

Sit with you while you use the internet 37 11 23 29 Do shared activities together with you on the internet

40 8 22 30

Note: QC327 and QP220 (QP, Question for parent respondent).

Table 3. Australian parents’ active mediation of their child’s internet safety, according to the child.

% of children who say that their parent does . . .

9–12 years 13–16 years

Boys Girls Boys Girls All

Helped you when something is difficult to do or find on the internet

83 88 75 71 79

Explained why some websites are good or bad 72 78 80 67 74 Suggested ways to use the internet safely 76 78 72 76 75 Suggested ways to behave towards other people online

60 75 69 64 44

Helped you in the past when something has bothered you on the internet

41 51 35 48 67

Talked to you about what to do if something on the internet bothered you

57 72 61 67 64

One or more of these 94 99 95 90 94

Note: QC329.

Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 117

Where an older child is able to appreciate that a communication option is risky, talks about

this and changes behaviour accordingly, parents may feel particularly able to trust them.

Parents have a complex and challenging job in attempting to mediate their children’s online

activities in ways which recognize the changing autonomy of the child as they move from

dependence into young adulthood. At least two-thirds of Australian parents choose to talk

with their children about their internet activities (Table 1), and or help when something has

bothered their child online (Table 3). Around three-quarters have suggested ways in which

to use the internet safely, explained why some websites are good or bad or helped when

something online was difficult to do or find (Table 3). These are strategies that build trust and

resilience, keeping channels of communication open and increasing the likelihood that the

child will continue to talk to the parent about their online activities. Such exchanges offer the

child a social context in which to place their internet experiences, even when such activities

occur well away from their parents’ oversight and remote from home, for example through

the use of a hand-held device or at a friend’s house. Education and informed decision-

making are key components of the fostering of children’s responsible decision-making

around internet activities. They are also implicated in, and the fruits of, relationships of trust.

Peer support

Peers are an important source of support for children and young people. In AU Kids Online

survey, 82% of children said their friends had helped or supported them in using the

internet (Table 5). Again, the question to children was not framed in terms of help or

support, only whether their friends had ‘ever done any of these things’ (from a specified

list). Of the forms of help considered, peers were most likely to assist other children to do

something or find something on the internet (75%). While this response to their friend’s

activity is similar to the number of parents providing the same kind of support, it is

coupled with comparatively lower levels of advice-giving. It seems that peers are more

likely to provide a practical and value-free form of support.

Interestingly, while there are slight differences between the genders in terms of

parental mediation, there are suggestions of similar slight differences with peer mediation

but in the opposite direction (Table 5). Australian girls are much more likely than

Australian boys to say that they receive support from their friends when something online

Table 4. Australian parents’ active mediation of their child’s internet safety, according to the child and one of their parents/carers.

% of children who say that their parents sometimes . . .

Child no parent no

Child yes parent no

Child no parent yes

Child yes parent yes

Helped you when something is difficult to do or find on the internet

9 12 11 67

Explained why some websites are good or bad

7 7 19 67

Suggested ways to use the internet safely 8 14 16 61 Suggested ways to behave towards other people online

15 13 18 54

Helped you in the past when something has bothered you on the internet

39 16 16 29

Talked to you about what to do if something on the internet bothered you

16 13 19 52

Note: QC329 and QP222.

118 L. Green and D. Brady

has bothered them. This is particularly true of older children with 56% of the girls in the

13–16 year old age range, but only 29% of the boys reporting such support (Table 5). This

gendered difference was not apparent in the pooled EU Kids Online data (Livingstone

et al. 2011, 123). In that case, the boys in the European study report similar results to their

Australian counterparts with 28% saying they have received help from their friends. Girls

in the EU Kids Online cohort are much more like their male peers than they are like

Australian girls: 33% of EU Kids Online girls aged 13–16 years say they have received

help from their friends when something has bothered them online compared to 56% of

AU Kids Online girls aged 13–16.

Across the AU Kids Online age groups, there was no difference between girls and boys

in terms of receiving one or more forms of peer support. However, peer support tends to

increase with age. This is in line with the role of peers as social supports during the time in

which young adults progressively disengage from their families of origin. Allison and

Sabatelli (1988, 5) note that ‘Parental encouragement of autonomy and individuality

relieves adolescents of implicit emotional demands to sacrifice their individuality’. The

movement from parents as primary support, to shared support between parents and peers,

can be an ‘and also’ dynamic, rather than ‘either or’. According to Allison and Sabatelli

(1988, 5), families that ‘promote a comfortable interdependence among generations

[through encouraging autonomy provide] opportunities for emotional support without

guilt or anxiety’. Many children receive support from both their parents and their peers.

Overall, 82% of Australian children in the study reported that their peers had supported or

helped them in one or more of the ways asked about (Table 5). This was higher than the EU

Kids Online average of 73% and put Australia in the top-seven countries for peer support

(Livingstone et al. 2011, 124).

Parent versus peer support

Comparing the giving of safety advice by parents or peers in the AU Kids Online study,

parents are clearly the first source of information for children seeking internet-related

support across both genders and all age groups (Table 6). Peers become slightly more

important, and parents slightly less so, only in the oldest age group. Generally, peers (33%)

were less likely than parents (44%) to provide advice on appropriate behaviour online.

Parents (74%) were more likely to make judgements about the relative merits of websites

Table 5. Australian peer mediation of child’s internet use, according to the child.

% of children who say friends at their school have ever . . .

9–12 years 13–16 years

Boys Girls Boys Girls All

Helped you when something is difficult to do or find on the internet

69 72 80 79 75

Explained why some websites are good or bad

40 32 40 47 39

Helped you in the past when something has bothered you on the internet

25 37 29 56 37

Suggested ways to behave towards other people online

26 27 38 43 33

Suggested ways to use the internet safely 29 29 34 36 32 One or more of all of the above 80 76 83 88 82

Note: QC336.

Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 119

than peers (39%). Australian children are more likely to say they provided safety guidance

to their peers (52%) than that they received it (32%) (Table 6). Whereas the average

situation in the 25 European countries was that 35% of children said they provided safety

advice to their friends, while 44% said they received it, there was considerable variability

between countries in the relative giving and receiving of advice (Livingstone et al. 2011,

125 [Figure 98]). In both Europe and Australia, help given and received appears to

increase with age. One exception in Australia is the dip in help given at age 13–14,

perhaps reflecting the move from primary school to high school and the need to

re-establish friendships in a new social circle.

While information is shared between peers, the domain of safety advice appears to be

centred on the parents. When children are bothered by something on the internet, it seems

they are more likely to seek and receive help from their parents (67%, Table 3) than their

peers (37%, Table 5). Mediation by peers in the variety of activities carried out on the

internet was higher (82%, Table 5) than mediation specifically in the realm of safety

advice (32%, Table 6).

The ACMA (2007, 73) study, with a sample of 1003 child respondents, aged 8–17,

measured children’s internet use via a personal diary system. For 72% of their internet

time the children were alone, while 28% of online time was spent in the company of

others, most often with other young people. At that time, children also reported using the

internet primarily at home (76% of their internet time), a situation that is rapidly changing

due to the uptake of smartphones and hand-held devices with internet access. The ACMA

study reported messaging and chatting as the most popular activities during 2007, in terms

of children’s use of their internet time (ACMA 2007, 61). Taken together, this data show

that children seek the company of their peers and opportunities to communicate with them.

European research demonstrates that this is a cross-cultural characteristic: ‘Children

mainly care about keeping in touch’ (Kohnstamm 2010, 8).

Compared to children surveyed in the wider EU Kids Online study, 82% of Australian

children reporting peer-mediated support (Table 5) is in line with the European average of

73% (Livingstone et al. 2011, 124 [Figure 96]). Overall, Australian peer support is at a higher

level than in most other European countries, and the Australian average of children offering

safety advice to peers (52%) is higher than in any other country. This finding across countries

reflects the importance of the peer group in early adolescence and the transition from parental

influence to adulthood (Simons-Morton and Hartos 2002; Simons-Morton and Chen 2009).

Parents and peers are both important when it comes to issues of resilience, and

resilience is a personal attribute which operates in a range of circumstances of special

relevance to adolescents. A person’s resilience is situation- and circumstance-specific,

Table 6. Summary of Australian peer and parent mediation of the child’s safe internet use, according to the child.

Child suggested ways to friends

Friends suggested ways to child

Parent suggested ways to child

Girls 55 33 77 Boys 48 31 74 9–10 years 51 26 76 11–12 years 55 31 78 13–14 years 44 31 79 15–16 years 56 38 70 All children 52 32 75

Note: QC329c, QC337 and QC336c.

120 L. Green and D. Brady

however. Rutter (1987, 345) argues that ‘Resilience cannot be seen as a fixed attribute of

the individual. If circumstances change, the risk [to be countered by resilience] alters’.

Summarizing Rutter’s perspective, Brackenreed (2010, 115) argues that there are four

protective processes supporting the development of resilience in an individual: ‘Firstly are

those that reduce a person’s exposure to risk, secondly, those that reduce negative

reactions to bad experiences, thirdly, those that promote self-esteem through achievement

and finally, positive relationships that provide opportunities through life’. In terms of

young people developing resilience in the face of troubling online content, parental

interventions might be most associated with the first of these aspects of resilience while

positive peer relationships are likely to join parental influence in impacting upon the final

three. Relationships of trust are important here, as between children and their parents.

Conclusion

Considering the research questions: in terms of relative support by parents and peers,

parents are clearly the primary source of support for Australian male and female children

over the age range examined. Parental support is particularly important when children

have experienced something on the internet that bothers them. The agreement between

parents and children on the amount and kind of support offered is quite close, even though

both were asked separately in the study. Peer support, while generally lower than parental

support in a relative sense, is still necessary and apparently of greater importance in

Australia than in Europe. Why this is so remains to be discovered by further analysis of the

AU Kids Online data. Excepting some specific activities, peer support appears to be similar

between Australian boys and girls. Like their European counterparts, peer support

becomes more important for Australian children as they grow older.

Strong, positive, relationships with parents and peers, coupled with strategies to cope

with any unsettling experiences (such as talking about these, and taking action such as

blocking and reporting inappropriate content), offer the possibility of building future

resilience. Parents and peers have a critical role to play in promoting the development of

competent, confident, internet-using young people, and the trust that characterizes these

relationships is an important part of their effectiveness. Trusting parents, and trusting

peers, combined with continued public education and support, may yet prove to be the best

strategy for developing positive skills and experiences online.

Acknowledgements

This paper and AU Kids Online survey draw on the work of the EU Kids Online network funded by the EC (DG Information Society) Safer Internet Plus Programme [project code SIP-KEP-321803]; see www.eukidsonline.net. The authors are grateful to the EU Kids Online network for their support.

Funding

The Internet in Australian Family Life was an Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP0211751) funded from 2002 to 2004, with Lelia Green and Robyn Quin as chief investigators and Donell Holloway and Jack Seddon as research associates. The ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation funded the AU Kids Online research through their risk and representation program.

Notes on contributors

Lelia Green is Professor of Communications at Edith Cowan University and is a co-Chief Investigator of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative lndustries and lnnovation, funders of the AU Kids

Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 121

Online research. She is on the International Advisory Panel of the EU Kids Online project, and a member of the 30 country network which is led by Professor Sonia Livingstone. Lelia’s research has included a specific focus upon the internet in Australian family life since the early 2000s.

Danielle Brady is a Senior Lecturer in Media, Culture and Mass Communications and Co-ordinator of Higher Degrees by Research in the School of Communications and Arts at Edith Cowan University. Danielle is an associate researcher on the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative lndustries and lnnovation funded AU Kids Online project and a chief investigator on an ARC Linkage project investigating community use of satellite derived bush fire information.

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122 L. Green and D. Brady

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