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9 November 2026

18 Pages

Parental Knowledge, Recognition of Warning Signs, Perceived Competence and Monitoring Regarding Digital Violence Against Children: An Exploratory Cross-Sectional Study in the Republic of Croatia

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Department of Nursing, University Centre Varaždin, University North, 42000 Varaždin, Croatia
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General Hospital Varaždin, 42000 Varaždin, Croatia
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School of Medicine, Catholic University of Croatia, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
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Department of Health Metrics Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
Children2026, 13(11), 1550;https://doi.org/10.3390/children13111550
This article belongs to the Special Issue Parent–Child Interaction: Contemporary Parenting Practices Across Digital and Everyday Environments
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Highlights

What are the main findings?
  • Mothers scored higher than fathers on knowledge of digital violence, recognition of its warning signs and parental monitoring, and parents’ age was associated only with monitoring; all differences were small, and only the gender difference in sign recognition and the age difference in monitoring remained significant after correction for multiple testing.
  • Knowledge of digital violence was weakly associated with recognition of warning signs and with perceived competence, but not with self-reported monitoring, while perceived competence showed the strongest (moderate) association with monitoring.
What are the implications of the main findings?
  • As knowledge alone was not associated with monitoring, parent education may need to go beyond information about digital risks and also strengthen parents’ self-efficacy and practical mediation skills; this hypothesis requires testing in other studies.
  • Knowledge scores showed a marked ceiling effect in this highly educated, predominantly maternal convenience sample, so future instruments should include more discriminating items and record the age of the child to whom parental mediation refers.

Abstract

Background: Digital technologies are an integral part of children’s and adolescents’ lives; however, their intensive use increases exposure to various risks, including digital violence, i.e., violence perpetrated or facilitated through digital technologies. Parents play an important role in recognizing these risks and protecting children through appropriate parental mediation and monitoring. Still, evidence on parents’ actual knowledge and monitoring practices in Croatia remains limited. Objectives: The aim of this exploratory study was to examine parents’ knowledge of digital violence, their ability to recognize signs of such experiences among children, their self-perceived competence in recognizing digital violence, and patterns of parental monitoring of children’s use of digital technologies. Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted on a convenience sample of 222 parents in the Republic of Croatia between January and February 2026. Eligible participants were parents of children older than two years. The purpose-developed instrument comprised four domains: knowledge of digital violence (6 items), recognition of signs of victimization (13 items), perceived competence in recognizing digital violence (4 items), and parental monitoring (6 items). Domain scores were expressed as percentages of the maximum attainable score. Groups were compared with Mann–Whitney and Kruskal–Wallis tests, with effect sizes (r, ε2) and Holm correction for multiple testing, and associations were assessed with Spearman’s correlation. Results: Median domain scores were high (knowledge 100%, sign recognition 83%, perceived competence 80% and monitoring 77% of the maximum), with a marked ceiling effect for knowledge. Mothers scored higher than fathers on knowledge (p = 0.042, r = 0.14), sign recognition (p = 0.002, r = 0.21) and monitoring (p = 0.014, r = 0.17), but not on perceived competence (p = 0.218); only the difference in sign recognition remained significant after Holm correction. Parents’ age was associated only with monitoring (p < 0.001, ε2 ≥ 0.08), with parents aged 21–40 years scoring higher than older parents. Educational level, marital status and the number of children were not significantly associated with any domain. Knowledge was weakly correlated with sign recognition (ρ = 0.23) and perceived competence (ρ = 0.20), but not with monitoring (ρ = 0.13, p = 0.062), whereas perceived competence showed the strongest, moderate correlation with monitoring (ρ = 0.53, p < 0.001). Conclusions: In this convenience sample, knowledge of digital violence was not by itself associated with self-reported monitoring, whereas perceived competence was. These exploratory, cross-sectional findings suggest that parent education might combine information on digital risks with strengthening parental self-efficacy and practical mediation skills, a hypothesis that should be tested in longitudinal and intervention studies.

1. Introduction

In contemporary society, digital technologies have become an integral part of the everyday lives of children and adolescents [1]. Their use begins at increasingly younger ages [2], and recent years have witnessed a continuous and exponential increase in their presence across all age groups of children and adolescents [3]. According to an OECD report (2025), 96% of 15-year-olds have access at home to a tablet, desktop computer, or laptop [4], while the average age at which children first use digital devices is approximately six years [5]. However, findings from recent studies indicate that first contact with digital devices often occurs considerably earlier, even before the age of two, pointing to children’s increasingly early exposure to the digital environment [5]. The high prevalence of exposure to digital devices during early childhood is further supported by a meta-analysis conducted by McArthur et al. [6], which included studies from various countries. According to its findings, only 24.7% of children under the age of two had no exposure to digital devices; furthermore, only 35.6% of children aged two to five years spend less than one hour per day in front of screens [6], which is consistent with the guidelines of the American Academy of Pediatrics [7].
Similar patterns of digital technology use can also be observed in the Republic of Croatia. The findings of the National Survey on Children’s Online Safety, HR Kids Online (2020), indicate that more than four hours per day are spent online by one in four children during the school week [8]. During weekends, the amount of time spent online increases substantially, with more than one-third of children using the internet for more than four hours per day [8]. Furthermore, according to the findings of the EU Kids Online Croatia study [9], children most frequently access the internet via smartphones, with 92.1% accessing the internet daily or several times a day. The use of desktop and laptop computers, tablets, and other digital devices is considerably less common, confirming the dominant role of smartphones in children’s and adolescents’ everyday digital activities [9]. These findings indicate the widespread availability and intensive use of digital technologies from an early age and confirm that the digital environment represents an important context for the development and upbringing of contemporary children.
Despite the numerous educational, developmental, and social opportunities provided by digital technologies, their increasingly intensive presence in the everyday lives of children and adolescents is also associated with various risks to mental, physical, and social well-being [10,11]. Research consistently indicates that longer screen time and more intensive use of social media increase the likelihood of exposure to various unpleasant and potentially harmful experiences in the digital environment [12]. Such experiences encompass various forms of digital violence and abuse, including sexual abuse through the sharing or misuse of intimate images, online hate speech, cyberstalking, harassment, the sending of unsolicited sexually explicit images (cyber-flashing), online trolling, the exchange of sexually explicit messages and content (sexting), and electronic peer violence (cyberbullying) [13]. In this study, digital violence is used as an umbrella term for any act of violence against a child that is perpetrated, facilitated or amplified through digital technologies, regardless of whether the perpetrator is a peer or an adult, a known person or a stranger [13]. Cyberbullying (electronic peer violence) is understood as one specific form of digital violence; the term cyberbullying is used in this article only where the cited studies examined this specific form.
Of course, the use of digital technologies and the internet is largely shaped by the social and family environments in which children grow up [14]. Parents play an important role in shaping children’s digital habits, as their behaviour, attitudes, and approaches to mediation can contribute to the development of safe and responsible use of digital technologies [2,9]. Hence, parents can serve as positive role models, employ various forms of digital parenting, and, through education, develop their own competencies and attitudes related to the appropriate use of digital devices by children [2]. Previous research indicates that different forms of parental mediation play distinct roles in protecting children from negative experiences in the digital environment. Although strategies aimed at restricting access to digital technologies and the internet may be associated with a lower risk of experiencing digital violence, active and collaborative parental mediation appears to have a stronger protective effect. This approach includes shared use of digital technologies, discussions about children’s online experiences, and parental involvement in children’s digital activities [14].
The theoretical basis of the present study is the parental mediation framework. Livingstone and Helsper distinguished active mediation (talking with the child about online content and activities), restrictive mediation (rules that limit time, content or activities), technical restrictions, and monitoring (checking the child’s online activity after use) [15], and later work grouped these strategies into enabling and restrictive mediation [16]. In this study, parental monitoring is used as an umbrella term for parent-reported mediation practices and covers both communication-based (active) and control-based (restrictive and monitoring) strategies. In addition, behavioural theories such as the theory of planned behaviour [17] and social cognitive theory [18] suggest that knowledge is a necessary but not sufficient condition for behaviour: knowledge is expected to support the recognition of relevant cues, whereas perceived behavioural control or self-efficacy, i.e., parents’ confidence in their ability to recognize and respond to online risks, is expected to be the more proximal correlate of actual mediation practices. Consistent with this view, Internet-specific parental self-efficacy has been linked to all types of parental mediation [19].
On the basis of this framework, the four domains examined in this study were conceived as a sequence from knowledge to behaviour: what parents know about digital violence (knowledge), what they regard as warning signs of victimization in a child (sign recognition), how competent they feel in recognizing digital violence (perceived competence), and what they report doing (parental monitoring). We therefore expected (i) a positive association between knowledge and sign recognition, (ii) positive associations of knowledge and sign recognition with perceived competence, and (iii) a stronger association of monitoring with perceived competence than with knowledge. These expectations were not pre-registered, and the analyses of sociodemographic correlates were exploratory, without directional hypotheses.
Considering the role attributed to parents in protecting children from digital violence, the aim of this exploratory study is to examine parents’ knowledge of digital violence, their ability to recognize signs of such experiences among children, their self-perceived competence in recognizing digital violence, as well as patterns of parental monitoring of children’s use of contemporary digital technologies. The study did not assess children’s actual exposure to digital violence or the preventive effectiveness of parental practices; its findings therefore describe parental knowledge, perceptions and self-reported practices and their associations.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Study Design and Data Collection

A quantitative methodological approach was employed in this study. An exploratory cross-sectional study was conducted in January and February 2026 and is reported in accordance with the STROBE guidelines for cross-sectional studies [20]. Data were collected by means of an online questionnaire distributed to parents in Croatia. The questionnaire was disseminated via social media platforms and parenting-related online groups to enable broad national reach and voluntary participation. Because this recruitment strategy relies on self-selection, parents with a particular interest in children’s digital safety, or who are more digitally engaged, may have been more likely to participate; the sample is therefore not representative of parents in Croatia, and the findings refer to this convenience sample (see Section Study Limitations). Participating in the study and filling out the questionnaire contained no financial or other incentive.

2.2. Sample Description

A convenience, non-probability sample (N = 222) was employed in this study. The study population consisted of adult parents of children older than two years of age in Croatia. The inclusion criterion requiring that participants have children older than two years was based on the findings of a recent systematic literature review conducted by Nuvoli et al. [21]. The authors report that a substantial number of existing guidelines and recommendations advise against the use of digital technologies and exposure to screens and digital content for children under the age of two. Beyond these recommendations, the criterion reflected the content of the instrument: most sign-recognition and monitoring items (e.g., hiding the screen from parents, distress after receiving messages, conversations about online risks, rules on content) presuppose at least some independent use of digital devices and online interaction with others, which is rare before the age of two, when children’s digital exposure is largely passive and directly controlled by parents. Parents whose only children were two years of age or younger were therefore excluded. We acknowledge that many children under two are nevertheless exposed to screens [6] and that their parents also face digital safety issues (e.g., sharing images of their children online), so the findings cannot be generalized to parents of infants and toddlers. The inclusion criteria were: (i) being an adult (18 years or older); (ii) being a parent of at least one child older than two years; (iii) living in Croatia; and (iv) electronic informed consent. The questionnaire did not ask respondents with more than one child to refer to a specific child, and the age of the children was not recorded (see Section Study Limitations). Participation was voluntary and anonymous, and respondents were informed that they could withdraw from the survey at any time without any consequences. No a priori sample size calculation was performed, as the study was exploratory and the sample size was determined by the number of responses collected during the two-month data collection period. A sensitivity power analysis showed that, with N = 222 and α = 0.05 (two-tailed), the study had 80% power to detect correlations of |ρ| ≥ 0.19 and, for the comparison of 43 fathers with 179 mothers, standardized differences of d ≈ 0.49 (r ≈ 0.19); smaller effects could not be detected reliably.

2.3. Instrument Description

The study used a structured questionnaire developed for the purpose of assessing parents’ knowledge of digital violence, their recognition of warning signs of victimization in children, their perceived competence in recognizing digital violence, and parental monitoring of children’s use of digital technologies. The instrument was constructed by the research team on the basis of a review of the relevant literature and of existing instruments in the field, as no validated Croatian-language measure covering all four domains was available. The item pool was generated by the research team on the basis of definitions and typologies of digital violence [13], warning signs of victimization described by child-protection authorities and experts [22,23] and the parental mediation framework [14,15,16]. The four domains were defined a priori, before data collection, according to the framework described in the Introduction. The draft questionnaire was reviewed by the members of the research team for clarity and content relevance; no formal content validity index, pilot study or cognitive interviews were conducted, which we acknowledge as a limitation (Section Study Limitations). The questionnaire consisted of four parts: (1) knowledge of digital violence (6 items), (2) recognition of warning signs of victimization in children (sign recognition; 13 items), (3) perceived competence in recognizing digital violence (perceived competence; 4 items), and (4) parental monitoring of children’s use of digital technologies (6 items). Knowledge items were statements about the forms and characteristics of digital violence (e.g., that online grooming of children for sexual exploitation is a form of digital violence, or that perpetrators can remain anonymous), and responses were scored as correct or incorrect; the correct answers were defined in advance by the research team according to the definitions in the literature [13,14]. Sign-recognition items listed changes in a child’s digital use, emotions and behaviour that are described in the literature as warning signs of victimization [22,23] (e.g., nervousness when receiving messages, emotional distress after using digital devices, receiving suspicious messages or phone calls). Perceived competence items assessed parents’ confidence in their ability to recognize digital violence in their child. Monitoring items covered communication with the child about online activities and risks (active mediation) and rules, limits and checks of the child’s use of digital technologies (restrictive mediation and monitoring) [15]. A further section collected sociodemographic data (sex, age, marital status, level of education, number of children, and time spent with children daily). The complete original questionnaire (Croatian version), with the full wording of all items and response options, is provided in Supplementary Material S1; the scoring procedures are described below.
Responses in the knowledge domain were scored based on correctness, while items assessing sign recognition, perceived competence, and parental monitoring were rated using Likert-type scales. Sign-recognition items used a 4-point scale, where 1 indicated that the item did not suggest experienced violence at all, and 4 indicated a strong suggestion of it. Perceived competence and monitoring items used a 5-point scale, with 3 representing a neutral stance, 1 indicating “strongly disagree”, and 5 indicating “strongly agree”. Domain scores were calculated by summing the item scores and then converting them into percentages of the maximum possible score, with higher values indicating greater knowledge, stronger endorsement of warning signs, stronger perceived competence, or more frequent parental monitoring. Because all 13 sign-recognition items represent established warning signs [22,23] and were scored in the same direction, with no non-indicator (distractor) items, a higher sign-recognition score indicates a greater tendency to regard established warning signs as suggestive of victimization; the score reflects endorsement of known indicators rather than discrimination accuracy and cannot distinguish accurate recognition from a general tendency to attribute behaviours to victimization (see Section Study Limitations). Because the knowledge domain was scored as the percentage of correct answers and the other domains as the percentage of the maximum Likert score, percentage scores are not commensurable across domains and were not compared with one another. Following data collection, the psychometric properties of the perceived competence and monitoring domains were evaluated; the knowledge and sign-recognition domains were treated as criterion-referenced indices (see below). Missing data were minimal, with less than 1% missing responses per item. Cases with missing values were excluded pairwise from the analyses concerned; no imputation was performed.
Internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha and McDonald’s omega coefficients. The perceived competence and monitoring scales demonstrated acceptable reliability [Cronbach’s α/McDonald’s ω: perceived competence 0.71 (95% CI 0.64, 0.77)/0.72; parental monitoring 0.70 (95% CI 0.64, 0.76)/0.72]. Internal consistency coefficients were not calculated for the knowledge and sign-recognition domains, because these domains were designed as criterion-referenced (formative) indices rather than reflective scales: each knowledge item tests a distinct fact about digital violence, and each sign-recognition item represents a distinct warning sign (digital, emotional, behavioural or somatic) that may occur independently of the others. For such indices, the items are not interchangeable indicators of a single latent trait, so high inter-item correlations are neither expected nor required, and coefficients such as Cronbach’s α or KR-20 are not an appropriate index of their measurement quality [24]. Moreover, the knowledge items were answered correctly by 85–98% of respondents, so their variances are very small, and any internal consistency coefficient would mainly reflect this restricted variance rather than the quality of the items. Test–retest reliability could not be assessed because the survey was anonymous and administered only once. Exploratory factor analysis supported a one-factor structure for the perceived competence domain, while the parental monitoring domain showed evidence of two related but overlapping aspects of monitoring behaviour: communication with the child about online activities and risks, and control of technology use, one of which was represented by only two items. A single monitoring score was retained because (i) the domain was defined a priori as one construct covering the range of parental mediation practices; (ii) the two aspects were related and overlapping; (iii) a two-item factor does not provide a stable or reliable basis for a separate subscale, so analyses of separate subscores would not be interpretable; and (iv) the total score showed acceptable internal consistency. Given the post hoc nature of these analyses and the modest sample size for factor-analytic purposes, the EFA was used only to check the plausibility of the a priori scoring and not to derive the final structure of the instrument, which requires confirmatory factor analysis in an independent sample (Section Study Limitations). Considering the conceptual design of the questionnaire and the exploratory nature of the validation analyses, all original items were retained and the scales were analysed using their total scores.

2.4. Ethical Statement and Informed Consent

The research was performed in compliance with the ethical principles of the Declaration of Helsinki in its current (2024) revision [25]. Ethical approval for the study was granted by Ethical committee of the University North (Class 641-01/26-01/16, Reg. No. 2137-0336-07-26-1). In the introductory section of the online survey, participants were provided with information regarding the purpose, objectives, and significance of the study. The title of the research, as well as details concerning confidentiality, data privacy protection, and participant anonymity, were also presented. Participants were given the researchers’ contact information for any additional questions or requests for clarification. Informed consent was obtained electronically through a consent form incorporated into the online survey. All collected data were stored electronically on a password-protected computer, with appropriate measures implemented to ensure data security and confidentiality.

2.5. Statistical Analysis

Participants’ demographic characteristics were summarized using descriptive statistics. Continuous variables are presented as the median, because of the non-normal distribution of the data, together with the range (minimum to maximum) and interquartile range (IQR; calculated as the difference between the 75th and 25th percentiles). Normality of data distribution was assessed using the D’Agostino–Pearson test. Categorical variables were analysed using the χ2 test. Continuous variables were compared using the Mann–Whitney U test or the Kruskal–Wallis test, depending on the number of groups being compared. Correlations were assessed using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient, with 95% confidence intervals calculated using the Fisher z transformation. Effect sizes were derived from the test results as r = Z/√N for the Mann–Whitney U test and as ε2 = H/(n − 1) for the Kruskal–Wallis test and interpreted according to Tomczak and Tomczak [26] (r: 0.1 small, 0.3 medium, 0.5 large). Because 20 group comparisons (five sociodemographic variables × four domains) and six correlations were tested, p values were adjusted with the Holm-Bonferroni procedure within each family of tests, and all sociodemographic comparisons were treated as exploratory. Categories with fewer than five respondents (age ≤ 20 years, single parents, and four and five or more children) are flagged and were not interpreted inferentially. Age was recorded in categories in the questionnaire and could therefore not be analysed as a continuous variable. All statistical analyses were performed using MedCalc version 20.305 (MedCalc Software Ltd., Ostend, Belgium). Two-sided p values < 0.05 were considered statistically significant.

3. Results

The sample included 222 parents, of whom 43 were fathers (19.37%) and 179 were mothers (80.63%). The majority of respondents (88.74%) were between the ages of 31 and 50, and 74.3% had a bachelor’s degree or higher. Eighty percent of respondents were parents of one or two children, while approximately two-thirds reported spending five or more hours a day with their children (Table 1).
Table 1. Sociodemographic characteristics of respondents.
The analysis of the relationship between the time parents spend with their children and sociodemographic characteristics showed a statistically significant association with age (p = 0.011) and gender of the parents (p = 0.007). More specifically, parents aged 31 to 40 years more often report spending more than six hours daily with their children, while parents aged 41 to 50 years more often spend between two and six hours per day. Also, mothers are more likely than fathers to report spending more than six hours a day with their children, while the proportion of fathers who spend less than two hours a day is higher than that of mothers. On the other hand, no statistically significant association was found between the time spent with children and the number of children in the family (p = 0.463), the level of education of the parents (p = 0.810) or marital status (p = 0.278).
Knowledge scores were high, with the proportion of correct responses to individual statements ranging from 85% to 98%; the median knowledge score was 100%, i.e., at least half of the respondents answered all six items correctly, which indicates a pronounced ceiling effect and limits the ability of this domain to discriminate between respondents. The vast majority of respondents (98%) identified online grooming of children for the purpose of sexual exploitation as a form of digital violence. In addition, 85% were aware that perpetrators may remain anonymous. The other domains had medians between 77% and 83% of the maximum, and no respondent obtained the lowest possible score in the perceived competence and monitoring domains (Table 2).
Table 2. Association between parents’ gender, age, educational level, marital status, and number of children with knowledge of digital violence, recognition of warning signs, perceived competence and parental monitoring.
Table 3. Effect sizes and Holm-adjusted p values for the comparisons of domain scores across sociodemographic groups.
Parents also rated most of the listed warning signs as suggestive of digital violence, with a median score of 43 points (83% of the maximum possible score), with nervousness when receiving messages, emotional distress after using digital devices, and receiving suspicious messages or phone calls most frequently identified as indicators of digital violence. Furthermore, parents rated their own competence in recognizing digital violence as high (median score: 16 points; 80% of the maximum possible score). They also reported frequent parental monitoring of their children’s use of digital technologies (median score: 23 points; 77% of the maximum possible score), particularly with regard to open communication with children about online risks and setting limits on the use of digital content.
Mothers scored higher than fathers on knowledge of digital violence (p = 0.042; r = 0.14), sign recognition (p = 0.002; r = 0.21) and parental monitoring (p = 0.014; r = 0.17), whereas perceived competence did not differ by gender (p = 0.218; r = 0.08). All of these effects were small, and after Holm correction, only the difference in sign recognition remained significant (adjusted p = 0.038), whereas the differences in knowledge and monitoring did not (adjusted p = 0.714 and 0.252, respectively) (Table 3).
Parental age was associated only with parental monitoring (p < 0.001; ε2 ≥ 0.08; Holm-adjusted p < 0.020), with higher median scores in parents aged 21–30 (87%) and 31–40 years (80%) than in those aged 41–50 (73%) and ≥51 years (70%). Age was not associated with knowledge (p = 0.677), sign recognition (p = 0.641) or perceived competence (p = 0.103). Because the age of the children was not recorded and parental age is likely to be correlated with child age, this association may reflect the developmental stage of the children rather than parental age itself (Section Study Limitations).
Level of education, marital status and number of children were not associated with any domain (all p > 0.05; all ε2 < 0.04) (Table 2 and Table 3). The association between age and monitoring did not depend on the sparse categories, as the difference was evident between the two largest age groups, 31–40 years (n = 102; median 80%) and 41–50 years (n = 95; median 73%).
Correlations among the four domains are shown in Table 4. Knowledge of digital violence was weakly and positively correlated with sign recognition (ρ = 0.23, 95% CI 0.10–0.35) and with perceived competence (ρ = 0.20, 95% CI 0.06–0.32), and sign recognition was weakly correlated with perceived competence (ρ = 0.18, 95% CI 0.05–0.30) and with parental monitoring (ρ = 0.16, 95% CI 0.03–0.28). Knowledge was not significantly correlated with monitoring (ρ = 0.13, 95% CI −0.01 to 0.25; p = 0.062). The strongest correlation, of moderate magnitude, was between perceived competence and monitoring (ρ = 0.53, 95% CI 0.42–0.62). All significant correlations remained significant after Holm correction. Apart from the association between perceived competence and monitoring (28% shared variance), the correlations were weak, with less than 6% shared variance.
Table 4. Spearman correlations among the four domains (N = 222; pairwise deletion, with less than 1% missing responses per item).

4. Discussion

The increasing availability of personal mobile phones and other digital devices among children contributes to greater autonomy in the digital environment, but at the same time increases the likelihood of exposure to various forms of digital violence [27]. According to a Childlight report, in 2025, 7.3% of children were exposed to sexually explicit content against their will, while 6.7% experienced online solicitation [28]. Furthermore, according to findings from the World Health Organization, approximately one in six children and adolescents (15%) had experienced cyberbullying [29]. Similar patterns have also been observed in the Republic of Croatia. In line with the findings of the EU Kids Online Croatia study, the most common forms of digital violence include exclusion from social media groups and receiving offensive or hurtful messages. Nearly one in four children reported experiencing a distressing online experience at least once a month. In addition, one-quarter of children (25%) had received sexually explicit messages, with almost one in three of these children receiving such messages from someone they did not know [9]. Data from the international Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study further indicate that, in 2022, 13% of 11-year-olds, regardless of gender, had experienced cyberbullying, with the prevalence of victimization increasing with age [30]. These forms of behaviour are considered potentially harmful experiences in the digital environment and have been associated with impaired psychological functioning, a reduced sense of safety, and lower levels of well-being among children and young people. Data from recent international studies indicate a substantial prevalence of various forms of harmful experiences among children in the digital environment.
Previous research suggests that parents play a key role in preventing digital violence and protecting children in the digital environment [14,31]. The amount of time parents spend with their children is associated with their well-being, with greater parental involvement potentially contributing to children’s positive development and sense of security [32]. The study conducted showed that younger parents and mothers spend more time with their children during the day compared with older parents and fathers. It is plausible that greater time involvement is accompanied by greater engagement in children’s digital lives; however, this link was not examined in the present study, so it remains a hypothesis and cannot be taken as an explanation of the observed differences in monitoring.
Their involvement in children’s digital lives is manifested through various forms of digital parenting, including mediation of children’s use of digital technologies, integration of digital technologies into parenting practices, and the development of their own digital competencies. These forms of parental involvement are associated with how children engage in the digital environment, their well-being, and their level of digital literacy [33]. Accordingly, the previous literature suggests that parents with well-developed digital competencies and adequate knowledge of the characteristics, forms, and potential consequences of digital violence may be better able to recognize risky situations, respond promptly, and provide the necessary support to children exposed to digital violence.
The findings of the present study are only partly consistent with these assumptions, and the cross-sectional design does not allow conclusions about whether knowledge leads to better recognition or to protective action. Parents reported a high level of knowledge of digital violence, its various forms and specific characteristics, including the anonymity of perpetrators. However, given the marked ceiling effect, the knowledge items may have been too easy to discriminate between parents, and the high scores should not be interpreted solely as evidence of excellent knowledge, particularly because the sample was highly educated and recruited through online communities that are likely to attract digitally engaged parents. The ceiling effect may also partly explain why knowledge was only weakly related to the other domains. A high level of digital awareness was also reported by Yilmaz Kurt et al. in their study [34]; conversely, the study by Martín-Criado et al. showed that some parents still have limited knowledge of digital violence and its associated risks and tend to attribute responsibility for online supervision to the education system [35]. If we consider that the vast majority of children in the Republic of Croatia use digital technologies intensively throughout the day, particularly in the afternoon and evening when they are at home [9], parents’ digital awareness, combined with active guidance toward safe and responsible online behavior, may represent an important protective factor, as it may contribute to the timely prevention of and more effective intervention in cases of digital violence [36].
Research shows that children most often encounter inappropriate content, hate speech, and distressing messages entirely by chance, for example, when opening advertisements, messages, or links while using digital platforms [9,36]. In contrast, other forms of digital violence most commonly occur through direct contact with perpetrators via social media, messaging applications, phone calls, email, and similar communication channels [9]. Parents participating in the present study rated most of the listed indicators as suggestive of a child’s exposure to digital violence; because no distractor items were included, this reflects endorsement of established indicators rather than demonstrated accuracy of recognition. Among the most common indicators are sudden changes in patterns of digital technology use, such as spending an unusually large or small amount of time online, using digital devices at unusual times, hiding the screen from parents, and displaying distress after using a device or receiving a message [22,23]. In addition to changes in digital habits, potential exposure to digital violence may also be indicated by emotional changes, such as low mood, irritability, tearfulness, anxiety, or depressive symptoms, as well as declining academic performance, sleep and appetite disturbances, and various psychosomatic symptoms [23]. In our sample, parents with more knowledge of digital violence tended to endorse more warning signs, although this association was weak (ρ = 0.23); whether this translates into timely protective action could not be examined and remains a plausible interpretation based on previous studies [14,23].
Parental mediation and monitoring of children’s use of digital technologies represent an important aspect of digital socialization, as they enable children to gradually acquire the knowledge, skills, and strategies necessary for safe participation in the online environment [37]. Through open communication, support, guidance, and the establishment of rules and boundaries, parents can help children recognize potential risks, assess online content and situations, and develop more responsible digital practices [31,37,38]. Parents in the present study reported monitoring their children’s use of digital technologies, discussing potential risks with them, and restricting access to age-inappropriate content, i.e., both active and restrictive mediation practices [15]. Furthermore, research by Elsaesser et al. showed that parental monitoring based on parent–child cooperation, as well as the expression of parental warmth and support, is associated with lower rates of victimization and perpetration of cyberbullying. In contrast, monitoring based primarily on restrictive measures appears to be less effective in preventing such forms of violence [14]. In our sample, mothers reported more monitoring than fathers and younger parents reported more monitoring than older parents; the gender difference, however, was small and did not survive correction for multiple testing, whereas the age difference was more robust. The age association should be interpreted with particular caution: parental age is likely to be correlated with the age of the children, and parents of older children, particularly adolescents, use less restrictive mediation and report lower Internet-specific self-efficacy [19], so the lower monitoring scores of older parents may reflect the developmental stage of their children rather than parental age itself. Similar findings were reported recently by Uludaşdemir and Bayzan, who found that younger parents, those with higher socioeconomic status, parents living in urban areas, and mothers demonstrated higher levels of awareness of digital violence and higher levels of monitoring of digital technology use [39]. Parental monitoring and mediation of children’s use of digital technologies influence children’s behaviour while using these technologies, as well as their well-being and level of digital literacy [33]. Developing parents’ digital skills may therefore be an important target of prevention programmes, although the present data cannot show that it reduces digital violence.
The most notable pattern in our data was the dissociation between knowledge and monitoring: knowledge of digital violence was not significantly associated with monitoring, whereas perceived competence showed a moderate association with it (ρ = 0.53). This pattern is consistent with behavioural models in which perceived behavioural control and self-efficacy, rather than knowledge, are the proximal correlates of behaviour [17,18], and with studies linking Internet-specific parental self-efficacy and digital parenting self-efficacy to parental mediation and to awareness of cyberbullying [19,39]. If confirmed, it would suggest that parent education focused solely on information about digital risks may be insufficient unless it also builds parents’ confidence and practical skills in communicating with children and mediating their technology use. This interpretation rests on the pattern of correlations and not on a comparison of the percentage scores across domains, which are not commensurable because the domains used different response formats and scoring. At least three alternative explanations must also be considered. First, both domains were measured with self-reported Likert-type items completed by the same respondents in the same questionnaire, so shared method variance or a general tendency to rate oneself favourably may have inflated the association [40]. Second, the two scales may overlap conceptually, because parents who regularly talk with their children about online activities may base their perceived competence partly on these conversations. Third, the direction of the association cannot be determined from cross-sectional data: monitoring may increase perceived competence rather than vice versa, or a third factor, such as general parental involvement or conscientiousness, may drive both. The pattern should therefore be regarded as a hypothesis for longitudinal and intervention research and not as evidence of an intervention pathway.
The present study captured only the parents’ perspective, and children’s own experiences of digital violence may differ from what parents perceive. Perić-Prkosovački et al. reported perceptual differences between parents and children regarding digital violence [27]. In a qualitative study of adolescents aged 14 to 18 years, Paryente found that adolescents attributed cyberbullying to hatred and boredom, coped with it by asking the bully to stop, deleting content, forgiving, self-isolating and relying on family and friends, and processed emotions such as anger, embarrassment and sadness; these coping strategies were consistent with the components of the sense of coherence [41]. These findings suggest that parents’ self-reported knowledge and monitoring may not correspond to what children actually experience and disclose, and that parental mediation can be protective only to the extent that children are willing to turn to their parents. Combining parent and child reports is therefore an important direction for future research.

Study Limitations

Several limitations should be considered when interpreting the findings of this study. First, the questionnaire was specifically developed for this research and underwent psychometric evaluation only after data collection and primary analyses had been completed. No formal content validity assessment, pilot testing or cognitive interviewing was conducted, and test–retest reliability could not be assessed because the survey was anonymous and administered only once. Although the perceived competence and parental monitoring scales demonstrated acceptable internal consistency, internal consistency was not assessed for the knowledge and sign-recognition domains, which were treated as criterion-referenced indices, and further validation in independent samples is required before the instrument can be considered fully established.
Second, exploratory factor analysis supported a unidimensional structure for the perceived competence scale, but suggested that the parental monitoring scale may comprise two related dimensions—reflecting parental communication about online activities and parental monitoring or control of technology use. Because the questionnaire was originally conceptualized as measuring a single monitoring construct and one of the potential dimensions was represented by only two items, the present study used the overall monitoring score; separate analyses of the two aspects were not performed because a two-item subscale would not provide reliable estimates. Future studies should further examine the dimensionality of this construct and confirm its structure using larger samples and confirmatory factor analysis.
Third, several monitoring items showed strong endorsement by respondents, suggesting the possibility of social desirability influences and ceiling effects. Parents may overestimate their level of monitoring, communication, or involvement in their children’s online activities, which could have reduced variability in responses and limited the ability to detect stronger associations between variables. The knowledge domain showed a marked ceiling effect, so it could not discriminate well between parents with higher levels of knowledge. In addition, the sign-recognition domain contained no distractor items, so its score cannot distinguish accurate recognition from a general tendency to regard behaviours as signs of victimization.
Fourth, the age of participants’ children was not recorded. Although the inclusion criterion required that participants have at least one child older than two years, parental monitoring practices differ substantially across developmental stages: supervising a preschool child’s use of digital devices involves largely different behaviours, risks and mediation strategies than supervising an adolescent, whose online activity is typically more autonomous and less directly observable. The absence of this information means that the reported monitoring scores represent an aggregate across a developmentally heterogeneous group of children, and that age-appropriate differences in mediation could not be examined. Because parental age is likely to be correlated with child age, the association between parental age and monitoring may be confounded by the developmental stage of the children. Moreover, the questionnaire did not ask parents with several children to refer to a specific child, so the unit of reference is ambiguous for these respondents. Future studies should record the age of a defined reference child and stratify the analyses by developmental stage or adjust for child age.
Fifth, measurement invariance across gender and age groups was not tested. With only 43 fathers, small cells in several age categories, dichotomous knowledge items with a ceiling effect and a four-item competence scale, multi-group confirmatory factor analysis would not have yielded stable estimates; the group comparisons therefore assume, but do not demonstrate, that the items functioned equivalently across groups.
Sixth, more than 30 statistical tests were performed. Although effect sizes and Holm-adjusted p values are reported, the sociodemographic comparisons are exploratory; all group differences were small, and only the gender difference in sign recognition and the age difference in monitoring remained significant after correction. Several sociodemographic categories contained fewer than five respondents, so estimates for these groups are unstable; age was recorded in categories and could not be analysed as a continuous variable; and no a priori sample size calculation was performed, so the study was powered to detect only small-to-moderate effects. The sociodemographic variables were examined separately; because the sample consisted predominantly of mothers and highly educated parents, gender, age and education may be confounded, and multivariable modelling was not undertaken because the small number of fathers and the sparse cells in several categories would have produced unstable estimates. Furthermore, the association between perceived competence and monitoring may be inflated by shared method variance, because both were self-reported by the same respondents in the same questionnaire [40].
Finally, all data were based on a convenience sampling approach (with the possibility of selection bias) and parental self-report. Consequently, the findings reflect parents’ perceptions of their knowledge, abilities, and monitoring practices rather than objectively measured behaviours. In addition, the recruitment strategy possibly attracted parents who are themselves more digitally engaged and more interested in questions of online safety, with the resulting sample being predominantly female and highly educated. The findings, and the practical recommendations derived from them, therefore cannot be generalized to fathers, less educated parents or less digitally engaged parents. Additional studies should incorporate reports from children, behavioural measures, or longitudinal designs to provide a more comprehensive understanding of parental involvement in the prevention and recognition of digital violence.

5. Conclusions

In this exploratory cross-sectional study of a convenience sample of parents in Croatia, parents reported high knowledge of digital violence, strong endorsement of warning signs of victimization, high perceived competence and frequent monitoring of their children’s use of digital technologies, although the knowledge domain showed a marked ceiling effect. Knowledge was weakly associated with sign recognition and perceived competence, but not with self-reported monitoring, whereas perceived competence showed the strongest association with monitoring. Mothers scored somewhat higher than fathers and younger parents reported more monitoring, but these differences were small, and only the gender difference in sign recognition and the age difference in monitoring withstood correction for multiple testing. Because the study did not measure children’s exposure to digital violence or the outcomes of parental practices, it does not show that parental knowledge or monitoring prevents digital violence. The results, nonetheless, suggest that parent education programmes might combine information about digital risks with the strengthening of parental self-efficacy and practical mediation skills, a hypothesis that should be tested in longitudinal and intervention studies. Future research should use instruments with more discriminating items, record the age of a defined reference child, include more fathers and less educated parents, and incorporate the perspectives of children and adolescents.

Supplementary Materials

The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/children13111550/s1, Supplementary Material S1: Original version of the questionnaire in Croatian language; Supplementary Material S2: STROBE checklist for cross-sectional studies.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, M.K.G., M.N., T.M. and T.K.; methodology, M.K.G., M.N. and A.L.; validation and software, A.L. and I.K.L.; investigation, M.K.G., T.K., M.N., Z.Ž. and A.L.; data curation, M.K.G., A.L., T.M. and R.R.; writing—original draft preparation, M.K.G., M.N., T.M. and T.K.; writing—review and editing, M.K.G., M.N., T.M., T.K. and R.R.; supervision, M.N. and T.M. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The research was performed in compliance with the ethical principles of the Declaration of Helsinki in its current (2024) revision. Authorization for the study was granted by the authors’ academic institution, University North (Class 641-01/26-01/16, Reg. No. 2137-0336-07-26-1).

Data Availability Statement

The anonymized dataset generated and analysed during this study is available upon reasonable request from the first author or the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy and ethical restrictions concerning the participants.

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the support provided through an institutional project at University North within the framework of the European Union–NextGenerationEU.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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