Late Children's Media Consumption and their experience of Parental Supervision

Introduction
The age group of 9 to 12 years old is an age group of audience and media users that is less studied. This age group is not considered as child and on the other hand, they are on the threshold of adolescence and according to their own conditions, they have characteristics of adolescence and characteristics of childhood. Exposure of this group of children to the media and media productions, especially games and the Internet, has made serious concerns and challenges for families. On the other hand, late children in the mentioned age range face problems related to the teenage age group, earlier and want to change the style and context of their relationship with their parent. Thus, this study aims to answer these questions: what is the approach of this age group to media consumption? And how does this age group interact with their parents in the field of media consumption and the rules set by parents in this field? and how is their desire to pursue behaviors outside the scope of the rules established by their parents realized? In order to study this topic, different parenting styles have been described from the Bamrind point of view.
 
Method
To collect data, 32 Tehrani students aged 9 to 12 were interviewed. The data collected from the interviews have been analyzed through thematic analysis. From the point of view of the mentioned children, their parents supervise their media consumption in various discriminatory, tolerant, negligent and conciliatory ways. To select a sample using the convenience sampling method (due to the employment of one of the researchers teaching in Tehran schools), 32 students aged 9 to 12 (students in the second three years of elementary school) who were available for interviews were interviewed in the form of 4 focus groups of 8 people. Data collection for the interviews was carried out taking into account the regional diversity of schools until the theoretical data saturation stage was reached. In conducting the interviews, an active role was played in explaining the questions and mediating the discussions to obtain maximum information from the children. The interviews lasted between 45 minutes and an hour. To protect the privacy of the interviewees, only the students’ names were used without mentioning their surnames. Four schools in Tehran were selected for this study. One school with good financial status was located in the northern areas of Tehran, one school was located in the southern areas, and two other schools were located in the central areas of the city. The data were analyzed and organized using thematic analysis. First, considering the research objectives and theoretical foundations, the general structure of the interviews was designed, which helped to initially identify the main paths of analysis.
 
Findings
The majority of the media use of the interviewed children is in the form of watching movies and series or playing games. Due to the greater leisure time they have compared to older age groups, the majority of their media consumption is of a leisure nature. When children use media, they either consume media alone or with the participation and presence of other family members. Most students prefer to consume media alone and without their family. Faced to the imposition of parental control rules, children experience tensions over the amount of consumption, the consumption situation and the content of media consumption, and they experience these tensions in different ways. Some children perceive their parents' approach towards them as stricter than their siblings, and in their view, this discrimination creates tension.
 
Results
During media consumption, parents and children gain experiences in their interactions. One of these experiences is that parents are willing to monitor the process, quality, and quantity of media consumption. Striking a balance between the two is a fundamental challenge for children. Children also object to various aspects of parental interaction in this regard. For example, parents do not make much effort to improve the quality of a media experience and prefer to do a media activity simultaneously with other activities, while children demand a full presence from their parents, children want the full attention of the media consumers and their companions in this experience to be tied to the mediated space when consuming a media. On the other hand, they want to talk to their companions and share their feelings in the process of this experience. One of the issues that cause tension in the interaction between parents and children, one can mention the tension created over various issues centered around the media. Tensions over the media are divided into several main areas; parents usually have challenges with their children regarding the amount of media consumption. Failure to accept the rules set by parents and not observing the set hours in the family space for media consumption are also challenging issues. On the other hand, the challenge over the content consumed is one of the issues that exist between parents and children; however, it was found that the challenge over the content is less severe than the challenge over the quantity of use.