Study of an Online Program to Help Parents Talk With Their Tween Children About Health, Gender, Body-Image, and Relationships

Online Parent Media Literacy Program to Promote Preadolescent Health

The goal of this study is to learn if Media Aware Parent - Tween, an online program for parents of children ages 9-12, helps parents have effective conversations with their child about health and media.

Parent-child pairs (N=300 pairs) will be recruited to participate in a randomized controlled trial. Parent consent and parent permission and youth assent will be sought. Participant pairs will be randomized into one of two study arms: intervention and active control. All participants will complete a web-based pre-test questionnaire. Youth and parents will then receive access to their randomly assigned resource. Approximately four weeks after completing the pre-test questionnaire, all participants will complete a web-based post-test questionnaire.

Inclusion Criteria:

• The adult must be the legal guardian of a child ages 9 to 12 years old.
• The parent must be able and willing to receive email and text communication as part of the study.
• The parent-child pair must have access to a smartphone with internet connection as the resource review will be completed online in a format that is best viewed on a smartphone.
• The parent-child pair must be fluent in English as the study materials are written in English.
• The parent must indicate that they will give the child participant privacy to complete the questionnaires.
• Both the adult and child must agree to participate.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Only one parent-child pair per family may participate in the study. If the parent has more than one child aged 9 to 12 that is willing to participate, the parent will be prompted to select the child participant based on the following: if the parent's last name begins with a letter from A to M, select the youngest eligible child willing to participate or if the parent's last name begins with a letter from N to Z, select the oldest eligible child willing to participate.
• In an effort to ensure diversity in parent gender and race/ethnicity, not all eligible pairs who are interested in participating will be enrolled in the study.