The Role of Family in Bullying and Cyberbullying Involvement: Examining a New Typology of Parental Education Management Based on Adolescents’ View of Their Parents

Abstract

The influence of the family in children’s involvement in bullying and cyberbullying has been well documented. However, previous research into this relationship seems to have overlooked recent social changes, which have affected the family context. The aim of this study is to put forward a categorization of the current educational management of Spanish parents and examine how this is linked to their children’s involvement in bullying and cyberbullying. To achieve this, 2060 schoolchildren from the South of Spain (47.9% girls with mean age = 14.34) answered four questionnaires including the Scale for the Assessment of the Parenting Styles of Adolescents’ Mothers and Fathers, the Discipline Dimensions Inventory, the European Bullying Intervention Project Questionnaire, and the European Cyberbullying Intervention Project Questionnaire. The Cluster Analysis results revealed a typology containing six styles: permissive, authoritarian, strict, normative democratic, indulgent democratic, and punitive democratic. Lower levels of victimization and aggression in bullying and cyberbullying were found to be linked to the indulgent democratic or normative democratic styles and higher levels to the authoritarian and strict styles. The value of parents’ educational practices and how they are combined in general styles, since these are elements that can predispose or prevent adolescent’s involvement in bullying and cyberbullying, is discussed.

Parental Socialization, School Adjustment and Cyber-Aggression among Adolescents

“…With respect to cyber-aggression, as hypothesized, adolescents from authoritarian families showed greater involvement in direct and indirect cyber-aggressive behaviours, while involvement in such behaviours was similar in adolescents brought up by parents employing an indulgent, authoritative and negligent style. These results are in line with the conclusions reported in previous research that the authoritarian style is the most associated with involvement in violent behaviour in adolescence [55,57,81].…”

“…Another important variable considered in this study, due to its relationships with both parental styles and school adjustment [53,54,55,56,57], is cyber-aggression, which is defined as aggressive and intentional behaviour through the use of digital media [58,59,60]. Cyber-aggression can be direct (e.g., sending harmful messages and/or images to the victim without the need for the aggressor to hide his/her identity) or indirect (e.g., the use of third parties to carry out actions or send masked messages) [61,62].…”

Parental Socialization, Social Anxiety, and School Victimization: A Mediation Model

“…In other words, the feeling of being accepted, loved, and protected by parents is one of the main resources that enrolled adolescents have for not experiencing this excessive and persistent fear of being observed and judged by others in situations of social interaction. These results confirm those described by Gómez, Romera, Jiménez-Castillejo, Ortega-Ruiz, and García-López [36], who reported that parental educational practices represent a family asset that either promotes or hinders the development of social and emotional attitudes and skills in students and, through them, either favors or prevents the appearance of problems such as social anxiety in the classroom.…”

“…In this sense, recent research confirms the positive role played by parental acceptance and affection in the social adjustment of their children [35]. In contrast, it has been observed that parental styles characterized by excessive behavioral and psychological control [36,37], as well as the absence of support and affection, tend to be associated with emotional and behavioral problems in children [38,39]. In addition, some authors have highlighted that a lack of parental support and affection is a major risk factor for girls [40]; however, other authors have observed the opposite [41].…”

“…On the other hand, some studies in scientific literature have also explored the relationship between social anxiety and parental socialization. According to these studies, excessive behavioral and psychological control [36,37], as well as the absence of support and affection, increase the likelihood of experiencing social anxiety [42,43].…”