How often are parents close to their child? This new method captures it live
Using an innovative method, psychologist Loes Janssen and colleagues measure how long and how often parent and child are close in daily life, and how they experience that togetherness. The researchers combine ‘Bluetooth low energy beacons’ with the smartphone app Ethica to track participants' physical proximity and automatically send a questionnaire. Published in Behavior Research Methods.
Spending time together is important for our well-being. How often this happens and how it is experienced was difficult to measure. ‘By tracking physical proximity between parents and adolescents (12-18 years old), we are testing in a new way how parent and child experience their mutual contact in everyday life,’ says Loes Janssen (Clinical Psychology). Two methods commonly used so far are sending questionnaires at random times during the day via an app. Or parents and young people are asked to fill in questionnaires themselves after an interaction. But with both methods, there is a chance of missing important interaction. ‘Although we applied our method in a parent-child setting, the method can of course be used more widely in families, with colleagues and friends. Or in clinical groups and even as an intervention.’
Bluetooth beacon card 24/7
In the RE-PAIR study, parents and children were all given their own bluetooth beacon card the size of a debit card on a research day at the lab in Leiden. They also received instructions on the subsequent diary part of RE-PAIR, in which parents and adolescents received four questionnaires a day for fourteen consecutive days via a notification from the Ethica app on their mobile phones. Janssen combined this daily diary part with the new method of tracking physical proximity and sending questionnaires about possible parent-child interactions based on that proximity. ‘So each family member had their own bluetooth beacon card and their own mobile with the Ethica app. Parents and adolescents were instructed to carry their mobile with their own beacon card as much as possible with them day and night during the two weeks of the daily diary part.’
Tracking via Ethica app
During those two weeks, the Ethica app on the smartphone connected with the beacon cards via bluetooth. The Ethica app then tracked whether other family members' bluetooth beacon cards were nearby, within range of maximum four meters and in the same room. ‘We chose this distance because we assumed that parents and children did need to be reasonably close together to send the questionnaires about interactions.’ The Ethica app scanned every five minutes (according to the phone's default setting) to see if any beacon cards were nearby. If a child's app detected the mother and/or father's beacon card, this was saved in Ethica. And vice versa too: if a mother's and/or father's app detected a child's beacon card. ‘As a first step, this gave us insight into physical proximity between adolescents and their parents over a period of fourteen days.’
At least ten minutes near each other
When a child's Ethica app was near the father's/mother's beacon being in physical proximity for at least ten minutes (or vice versa), there might have been an interaction. The child then received a questionnaire via an automatic notification on the smartphone via the Ethica app ten minutes after the Ethica app no longer detected the mother's beacon card. This questionnaire contained specific questions for the child after the contact with father/mother: how nice it was, how the parent behaved; supportive or critical. ‘The child received the questionnaire 10 minutes later because we wanted to avoid that child and mother were still together when completing the questionnaire. Youngsters and parents did not receive too many questionnaires because the questionnaire was blocked for four hours.’
Evaluations generally positive for both fathers and mothers
Overall, analyses indicated that adolescents were near mothers more often and for longer periods than fathers, with large differences between families in frequency and duration. Evaluations based on proximity interactions and parenting behaviour were generally positive for both fathers and mothers.
