Abstract
Parental motivations for their own and their child's media use may shape the quality of media experiences and ultimately child development and family well-being. However, validated scales are lacking. The current paper describes scale development and validation of the Media Motivations for Child (MEMO-C) and Parent (MEMO-P) in 501 parents with young children (2-5 years old). The MEMO-C measures motivations for children's media use, while the MEMO-P measures motivations for parents' own use, emphasizing parents' regulatory and relational goals. Each scale had a three-factor structure (MEMO-C: Regulate, Occupy, Connect; MEMO-P: Regulate, Relax Alone, Connect). These factors demonstrated strong psychometric properties including high reliability, convergent validity, and incremental validity, uniquely predicting child- and parent-related constructs. By measuring parental media motivations through a regulatory and relational lens, these scales enable researchers to more closely examine how family media use is associated with child development and family members' well-being.