Supporting parents of adolescents in the digital era: building a parent training program to promote positive parenting practices and responsible use of digital devices

Abstract

The increasing digitalization of school-family communication has reshaped parental involvement in adolescents’ academic lives. In particular, electronic gradebooks provide parents with continuous access to grades, homework, absences, and school information, but may also encourage excessive monitoring, reduce students’ autonomy, and intensify homework-related stress. Grounded in Self-Determination Theory (SDT), this article describes the development of S.O.S. Homework, a parent-training program designed to promote autonomy-supportive parenting practices and the responsible use of digital school tools among parents of lower-secondary school students. The program aims to help parents support adolescents’ autonomy, competence, and relatedness during homework while reducing controlling behaviors associated with the use of electronic gradebooks. S.O.S. Homework consists of five 90-minute sessions combining psychoeducation, guided reflection, group discussion, role-playing, practical activities, and at-home exercises. The sessions address parents’ difficulties in homework management and digital monitoring, emotional awareness and validation, motivation and competence support, autonomy-supportive communication, planning strategies, and critical reflection on the educational use of the electronic gradebook. The intervention materials were organized into an A5 booklet containing theoretical content, session activities, worksheets, and homework assignments, allowing parents to review the strategies between and after the sessions. The program underwent a preliminary implementation with a small group of parents to assess the clarity, feasibility, timing, and accessibility of the materials. Feedback from this phase informed the refinement of the final version of the intervention. This work contributes to the development of evidence-informed interventions aimed at supporting parents in digitalized educational contexts and promoting adolescents’ well-being, autonomy, and responsible school engagement within increasingly technology-mediated school–family relationships.