Development of Parental Psychological Media Competence: Milestones, Principles and Methods

The concept of ‘parental psychological media competence’ was addressed, the significance of its cultivation for the purposes of securing psychological safety of children in the media environment was substantiated. A framework for the development of psychological media competence of parents was presented. Milestones of the development of psychological media competence were described: the value-based and meaning-making, the personality guidance, the creative and pragmatist. During the first stage, development of the meaningful (value-based and semantic parental self-determination, joint parent-and-child activity, psychological competence) came about, at the second – the procedural (psychological media experience, attitude to media, reflexive actions), at the third – the effective (understanding of media, a match of media understanding with a reference, the ability to reproduce accumulated experience of understanding the media) features of psychological media competence. The sequence of the change of stages is determined by individual peculiarities of the development of psychological competence of a parent, personal activity and particular experience, wherein psychological media competence was embedded. The emerging psychological media competence of parents would, aside from bringing parents’ media experience into the foreground, also engage deep inner resources of parental personality, significantly expanding their ability to accommodate own actions and activities of a child in the media environment. Analysis and trial of methods to develop psychological media competence of parents afforded us to accentuate the most effective ones, those appealing to personal experience and based on interactive communication: solving situational problems, gaming simulation of challenging situations in a media environment, plot– and activity-based games, discussion. Those methods encapsulated great opportunities for deep value-based and semantic changes, afforded to create an environment psychologically comfortable for parents to assure free, creative approach towards assessment and resolution of situations related to the behavior and emotional response of children in the course of their interaction with various types of media. Examples of methods field-proven by the authors in practical work were given.