Parental Attitudes and Digital Parenting in the Early Years: Development and Validation of the PADTS Scale

Background: This paper reports on the development and validation of the 15-item Parental Attitudes to Digital Technology Scale (PADTS), a brief, psychometrically validated measure assessing parents’ beliefs, confidence, and concerns about their 0-3 year olds use of digital technologies. Method: Developed as part of the UK-wide Toddlers, Tech and Talk (TTT) study (Flewitt et al., 2024), PADTS addresses a gap in existing research by focusing on children from birth to three years, a stage often overlooked in digital parenting literature. Co-developed with parents and early years experts, the scale was tested with a nationally balanced UK sample (N = 934). Results: Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a four-factor structure: Perceived Risks, Perceived Learning Benefits, Parental Confidence, and Technology-Related Anxiety. The PADTS showed strong model fit and measurement invariance across parent gender, ethnicity, and region, with some variation by child age. Correlational analyses indicated that benefit, perceptions and confidence were associated with supportive digital parenting, while anxiety was more weakly linked. Conclusion: PADTS shows potential as a practical tool for researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers, and may support a more nuanced understanding of how parental attitudes shape early digital experiences.