Parental Responsibility, Blameworthiness, and Bullying: Parenting Style and Adolescents’ Experiences With Traditional Bullying and Cyberbullying

Abstract

Parents are deemed morally—and, increasingly, legally—responsible for their children’s misbehavior, and their parental aptitude is questioned if their children are victimized. Parental responsibility laws and blameworthiness extend to common occurrences like bullying. Literature broadly supports these principles for some offenses through findings that effective parenting styles are associated with improved adolescent outcomes, but evidence about the relationship between parenting styles and bullying is underdeveloped and inconclusive. To study the relationship between parenting styles and traditional bullying and cyberbullying offending and victimization, data were collected from a sample of 435 Canadian middle and high school students. The results suggest that parenting styles are not associated with traditional bullying offending or victimization; however, neglectful parenting was associated with cyberbullying offending and indulgent parenting was associated with cyberbullying victimization. These findings suggest that the demandingness dimension of parenting, which is characterized by rule setting and monitoring, is important for cyberbullying prevention.

Perceived Parenting Styles and Emotional Control as Predictors of Peer Bullying Involvement

“…In a meta-analytic study, Lereya et al (2013) found that positive parental behaviors (authoritative parenting, parent-child communication, parental involvement and support, supervision, warmth, and affection) protected children from becoming victims of peer bullying, while negative parental behaviors (abuse/ neglect, maladaptive parenting, and overprotection) predicted a greater risk of children becoming victims or bully/ victims. Interestingly, Broll and Reynolds (2021) found no association between parenting styles and bullying offending or victimization. Therefore, the results of the aforementioned studies and the studies included in the systematic review by Nocetini et al (2019) suggest that the association between parenting styles and bullying involvement is inconclusive.…”

Role-Based Cyberbullying Situations: Cybervictims, Cyberaggressors and Cyberbystanders

“…Our findings are slightly higher, especially for cybervictims. This may be because more adolescents are using technology with increasing frequency [4], and without parental supervision, enhancing the disinhibition effect [34,35] used to describe the lowering of psychological restraints, which often serve to regulate behaviors in the online social environment.…”

Relationship between parenting styles and school bullying behaviour among adolescents

“…Research conducted in Western contexts further reinforces these findings. Broll and Reynolds hailing from Canada, underscored the influence of parental responsibility and blameworthiness on adolescents' encounters with both traditional and cyberbullying [12].…”

“…Their study revealed that more than 35% of the participants reported experiencing traditional bullying, with over 33% falling victim to cyberbullying. Approximately 9% of respondents admitted to bullying others through traditional or electronic means, while 8% and 9% identified as bully-victims in both categories [12]. Most participants reported having authoritative or indulgent parents, with the remaining evenly split between authoritarian and neglectful parenting styles [12].…”

“…Approximately 9% of respondents admitted to bullying others through traditional or electronic means, while 8% and 9% identified as bully-victims in both categories [12]. Most participants reported having authoritative or indulgent parents, with the remaining evenly split between authoritarian and neglectful parenting styles [12]. The sample primarily consisted of female middle school students, with visible minorities comprising approximately one-third of the participants.…”