Abstract

Many studies on the issues of parenting styles and children’s gaming routines have been undertaken quantitatively but not qualitatively. Thus, the present study aimed at qualitatively investigating the parenting styles in dealing with children’s routines of playing online games via gadgets. 20 parents and 10 children in Uram Jaya sub-district, Lebong regency, Bengkulu, Indonesia were involved as the participants. The data were garnered from interviews and observations. This study revealed that the parents applied authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive parenting styles in dealing with children’s gaming routines. The permissive parenting style seemed to contribute to children’s gaming addiction because the children, receiving this parenting style from one of their parents, played online games in the span of 2.5 and 4 hours. Subsequently, the authoritarian and authoritative parenting styles seemed to be able to control children’s gaming routines. Nevertheless, the authoritarian parenting style did not seem good at controlling children’s psychosocial development.

Key words: Parenting styles, gaming routines, gaming addiction