This study examines parental surveillance of preadolescents based on location-tracking applications installed on their smartphones. Applying reflexive thematic analysis to 24 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with mothers of middle-school children, the study asks how mothers with different parenting styles describe their surveillance ideologies and practices, and what are the sociocultural imageries that motivate their use of location-tracking applications. The findings offer six criteria for evaluating different familial surveillance climates, organizing them in a three-tier model that demonstrates the multidimensionality of digital parental surveillance. Consequently, the study challenges the presumed link between parental surveillance and strict parenting styles (e.g., authoritarian, helicopter). Acknowledging the increasing normalization of digital parental surveillance, the study advances a balanced and pragmatic view of this trend while illuminating participatory methods of implementing what is often considered a suppressive practice.

这项研究基于智能手机上安装的位置跟踪应用程序，检查了父母对青春期前儿童的监视。通过对24个半结构化的深度访谈进行反思性主题分析，对中学生母亲进行了调查，该研究询问具有不同养育方式的母亲如何描述他们的监视思想和习惯，以及促使他们使用地点的社会文化意象是什么？跟踪应用程序。研究结果为评估不同的家庭监护环境提供了六项标准，并将它们组织成三层模型，证明了数字父母监护的多维性。因此，这项研究挑战了父母监护与严格的父母养育方式（例如威权主义，直升飞机）之间的假定联系。