Parental active internet mediation and Children’s academic adaptation: the mediating role of video gaming and moderating role of deviant peer affiliation

Academic adaptation is an important aspect of children’s development, and it has been found to be closely associated with parent and peer related factors. In the current information era, the internet is also influencing children’s academic adaptation. Against this backdrop, we developed and tested a model in which active parental internet mediation (parents’ guidance and advice on children’s online behavior) was associated with children’s academic adaptation, further investigating the potential mediating role of video gaming and the moderating role of deviant peer affiliation. 683 Chinese elementary school students in Grades 4–6 were recruited to participate in this study. The children completed questionnaires at school during regular class time. The results indicated that: (a) after controlling for gender and age, active parental mediation was positively associated with academic adaptation; (b) video gaming was an mediating factor in the association between active parental mediation and academic adaptation; (c) the indirect effect of active parental mediation on academic adaptation through video gaming was moderated by deviant peer affiliation; specifically, for children with low deviant peer affiliation, the association between video gaming and academic adaptation was significant but insignificant for children with high deviant peer affiliation. Though, the relative small effect size of video gaming should be examined in the future studies to further clarify the associations and underlying mechanism between the main variables, the results have applied value for guiding children to use the internet responsibly and improving their academic adaptation.