Mobile phone parenting in families of young 'left-behind children' in rural China: A mixed-methods study

In China, many parents from rural areas do not live with their children because they migrate to distant urban areas for extended periods of time to work. Therefore, they sometimes use mobile phones in parenting their left-behind children (LBC), who are living with the in-hometown parents or grandparents. This doctoral dissertation aimed to specify mobile phone parenting (MPP) behaviours and investigate the role of this practice, together with individual and family characteristics, in the psychosocial adjustment of young LBC in rural China. There are three parts with five cross-sectional studies, based on both qualitative and quantitative data.

The first part of this dissertation is a precursor of the actual theme of the doctoral project. Due to COVID restrictions, there was a period in which we could not collect any data. To familiarize ourselves with our topic, we investigated the associations between adolescent individual (e.g., depression) and family characteristics (e.g., positive parenting) in an existing dataset. The China Family Panel Studies (wave 2012) provided questionnaire data of 532 rural adolescents and their mothers. This first study found a similarity in depression between mother and their children. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that positive parenting by in-hometown primary caregivers, adolescent secure attachment, and self-control were positively related to adolescent positive self-perspective, and positive parenting had a buffering effect in the intergenerational transmission of depressive symptoms.

The second part focused on conceptualizing and operationalizing MPP in early childhood. With a thematic analysis approach, the second study analysed interview data from 21 rural-to-urban migrant parents. We identified six mobile phone dimensions (i.e., responsivity, autonomy granting, proactive control, directive control, psychological control, and harsh punitive control). In addition, the narratives showed that participants perceived their own and offspring’s well-being, family media literacy, and coparenting as interferences of their distant parenting. In the third study, we evaluated some psychometric properties of the Mobile Phone Parenting Practices Questionnaire (MPPPQ), developed to measure the identified mobile phone parenting dimensions. In a sample of 547 migrant parents, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses showed a six-factor structure with good internal consistency and composite reliability. Convergent validity and criterion validity were acceptable, based on associations between the MPPPQ and the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire and parental stress, respectively.

The third part explored associations between MPP and child adjustment. Two studies used questionnaire data from 185 triads: grandparents, migrant mothers, and preschool teachers. The fourth study, using mediation analyses, showed that maternal perceived higher quality of pre-separation mother-child relationship was associated with more cohesiveness in the relationship with their LBC, which was in turn linked to increased child prosocial behaviour. Additionally, higher quality of pre-separation relationship was associated with more positive distant mothering, which went together with fewer child externalizing problems. Multiple hierarchical regression analyses in the fifth study showed that more positive grandparenting was associated with more child prosocial behaviour and fewer difficulties. A significant interaction effect indicated that low mother-grandmother coparenting relationship quality can be a risk factor: lower maternal levels of distant proactive control were associated with less prosocial behaviour, when the quality of the coparenting relationship was low.

Based on these findings, we argue for sufficient support for migrant parents and grandparents in parenting LBC, preferably involving the entire family system. On a meso- and macro-level, we encourage employers and policy makers to provide migrant parents with sufficient opportunities for distant parenting.