DIGITAL PARENTING: NAVIGATING THE CHALLENGES OF RAISING CHILDREN IN THE DIGITAL AGE IN NAIROBI, KENYA
Joy Igoki Njiru - A Doctor of Philosophy in Early Childhood Education student at the University of Nairobi, Kenya
Professor Paul Odundo - Department of education, Early Childhood Education, University of Nairobi, Kenya
ABSTRACT
The rise of digital age has been praised for its positive contribution towards cognitive, emotional, psychosocial and social development of the child during parenting, the same has not been without risks and challenges. These challenges arise especially when parents are not able to control excessive use of digital devices by children in the digital age during their parenting. Thus, this study was an assessment of digital parenting by navigating the challenges of raising children in the digital age in Nairobi, Kenya. The specific objectives of the study were to: determine the opportunities presented by digital age during parenting of children in Nairobi, Kenya; establish the challenges associated with digital age during parenting of children in Nairobi, Kenya; establish the joint effect of opportunities and challenges presented by digital age on parenting of children in Nairobi, Kenya and suggest appropriate strategies of handling the opportunities and challenges presented by digital age during parenting of children in Nairobi, Kenya. The social networks as well as the uses and gratification theory. Descriptive survey design was adopted targeting 90 parents from Nairobi who were sampled conveniently and data was collected through structured questionnaire and the analysis was supported by means and standard deviations and regression analysis. It was noted that 70.8% variation parenting of children is explained by the opportunities and challenges presented by digital age. At the same time, challenges associated with digital age exerted the greatest positive and significant effect on parenting of children (β=0.474, p<0.05) followed by the opportunities presented by digital age (β=0.416, p<0.05). It was concluded that that opportunities and challenges presented by digital age jointly exert significant effect on parenting of children. It was recommended that parents should regularly track all activities undertaken by their children when they are browsing through online systems using their phones. There is need to restrict access to children to critical contents and information that available online through internet services. Parents in Kenya should stay close to their children and provide education on relevant network sites and those the irrelevant ones which they should access. Parents in Kenya should optimize the power of digital devices like televisions and smart phones to support education and learning activities of children and thus enhancing their creativity.