The Relationship Between Parents’ Own Responses to Childhood Bullying and What Strategies They Would Recommend to Their Children

Abstract

AbstractGiven the probable influence parents have on the development and maintenance of bullying and victimization in their children, there is potential for an intergenerational transmission of coping strategies in response to bullying incidents. Cross-sectional data is presented from an online anonymous questionnaire conducted in New Zealand. Parents gave responses about their own childhood experiences of various forms of bullying, how they responded, whether the responses were effective and whether they would recommend the response to their own children. The study had 104 parent participants (72 mothers and 32 fathers) with an average age of 40 years (range 21 to 62 years), and their children were aged between 5 months and 17 years; 93% resided in New Zealand. During childhood, the majority of participants had experienced verbal bullying (90%), 55% experienced relational bullying and 43% physical bullying. The strategies tell someone else and ignore the bullying were the most frequently recommended, and about half the participants had found them effective. Talk to the bully about their behaviour was recommended by almost a third of participants and had been used by a similar number. In contrast, although retaliate was not recommended by participants, it had been used by over 50%, half of whom found it effective in response to physical bullying. Overall, there was considerable variation with regard to which strategies parents had used, how effective they were for differing forms of bullying and whether they themselves would recommend a particular strategy to their child. Implications for how parents’ own varied experiences may contribute to the conversations both at home and in school about what we should recommend to children are discussed.