Abstract: [Purpose/Significance] This paper aims to discover, generalize and describe the process of Chinese parental mediation on children's mobile screen time and its local characteristics to provide research evidence for the implementation of related policies. [Design/Methodology] In this study, semi-structured interviews were used to obtain qualitative research data, and coding analysis was conducted using grounded theory. [Findings/Conclusion] A total of seven conceptual categories are obtained, including parental evaluation of children's screen time, the basis, content, and modes of parental mediation on children's screen time, factors influencing the effects of parental mediation, and children's evaluations of and reactions to parental mediation.It is found that the process of parental mediation processes includes three stages of "occurrence" "implementation" and "outcome", and parental mediation presents these local characteristics of "authoritative decisions" "presence prerequisites" "academic orientation "and "urban-rural differences". It is proposed that "authority discourse" "inter-generational structure" and "academic supremacy" are the local fields of parental mediation in China; student achievement and authority are the biggest prerequisites and fundamental ways of the local parental mediation in China. The mediation of children's mobile screen time by rural parents is in a certain dilemma. [Originality/value] The process and characteristics of parental mediation of children's mobile screen time in China's local context help explain the contradictions in the existing research and provide local experiences on related practices in China.