PARENTING STYLE AND CHILDREN’S INTERNET USE

The purpose of this study was to provide information on parent’s behavior towards their children’s use of internet and to examine the relationship between children’s internet use and their parenting style. Particularly, this study examined the type of internet parenting style among primary school children and evaluated whether internet parenting style predicts children’s Internet use at home. This study used the descriptive-correlation method to determine the internet parenting style and children’s use of internet. The researcher adopted the standardized test from Ihmeideh and Shawareb (2013), consisted of two main scales: Internet Parenting Style Scale and Internet Usage Scale which were answered by a total of 161 parents who have children in Kinder, Grade 1 and 2 in a selected private schools in Lucena City. rom the study of Ihmeideh and Shawareb (2013), it was revealed that authoritative parenting style was the most common practice by parents when using the internet. It inferred that majority of the parents talked to their children about whom he/she should contact or meet on the internet. However, from the four categories of internet usage, entertainment dominated over the others as it denoted that children highly rely in the internet to amuse themselves which they found through games and other new applications that are downloadable, and at the same time can be easily installed. Lastly, there was a significant relationship between internet parenting style and children’s internet use. The highest rank of internet parenting style was permissive and neglectful. As a result, parents should be aware of their children’s internet usage and provide a parental control that restricts their on-line activities. They should also be aware of the advantage and disadvantages brought by the technology at home. Extreme use of computer can cause physical, social and psychological problems for children. Moreover, the study heightened the students’ awareness on the safe and unsafe use of Internet since they are engaging increasingly in interactive activities. Computer can cause physical, social and psychological problems for children.