Teens 'mocked' by their parents are at greater risk for bullying, victimization
July 9, 2019
Science Daily/Florida Atlantic University
Unique longitudinal study explores understudied form of adolescent parenting -- derisiveness
New evidence suggests that adolescent bullying and victimization may have origins in the home. Many bullies have parents who are hostile, punitive and rejecting. Researchers from Florida Atlantic University's Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, and Uppsala University in Sweden, have identified another type of parenting that contributes to peer difficulties: those who direct derision and contempt at their children.
Derisive parents use demeaning or belittling expressions that humiliate and frustrate the child, without any obvious provocation from the child. These parents respond to child engagement with criticism, sarcasm, put-downs and hostility, and rely on emotional and physical coercion to obtain compliance.
The study, published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, emphasizes the emotional underpinnings of peer difficulties. The researchers followed 1,409 children for three consecutive years from grades 7 to 9 (ages 13-15 years).
Findings show that derisive parenting fosters dysregulated anger in adolescent children. Dysregulated anger is indicative of difficulties regulating emotion, which typically result in negative emotions, verbal and physical aggression, and hostility. Increases in dysregulated anger, in turn, place adolescents at greater risk for bullying and victimization, and for becoming bully-victims (bullies who also are victimized by other bullies).
The latter finding is noteworthy given that past research indicates that bully-victims are at the greatest risk for poor mental health, behavioral difficulties, and suicidal thoughts when compared to "pure" victims, "pure" bullies, or non-victims. Identification of the family-specific origins of bully-victim status may be a key step in limiting or preventing such poor outcomes.
Importantly, these findings held after controlling for parenting behaviors implicated in child adjustment, such as warmth, control and physical punishment. This study suggests that derisive behavior is a unique form of parenting that increases the risks that adolescent children will adopt inappropriate anger management strategies that increases their risk for peer difficulties.
"Inappropriate interpersonal responses appear to spread from parents to children, where they spawn peer difficulties. Specifically, derisive parenting precipitates a cycle of negative affect and anger between parents and adolescents, which ultimately leads to greater adolescent bullying and victimization," said Brett Laursen, Ph.D., co-author and a professor of psychology in FAU's Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. "Our study is important because it provides a more complete understanding of how parents' belittling and critical interactions with adolescents thwart their ability to maintain positive relationships with peers."
Daniel J. Dickson, Ph.D., Department of Psychology at Concordia University, is the senior author of the study.
"Implications from our study are far-reaching: practitioners and parents should be informed of the potential long-term costs of sometimes seemingly harmless parenting behaviors such as belittlement and sarcasm," said Dickson. "Parents must be reminded of their influence on adolescents' emotions and should take steps to ensure that adolescents do not feel ridiculed at home."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190709110230.htm
Teen girls more vulnerable to bullying than boys
May 7, 2019
Science Daily/Rutgers University
Girls are more often bullied than boys and are more likely to consider, plan, or attempt suicide, according to research led by a Rutgers University-Camden nursing scholar.
"Bullying is significantly associated with depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation, suicide planning, and suicide attempts," says Nancy Pontes, an assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Nursing-Camden. "We wanted to look at this link between bullying victimization, depressive symptoms, and suicidality by gender."
In an examination of data from the Centers for Disease Control's nationally representative Youth Risk Behavior Survey from 2011-2015, Pontes and her fellow researchers conducted analyses of the data and found that more females are negatively affected by bullying.
Pontes says that, in general, girls are more often bullied than boys, and girls are also more likely to consider, plan, or attempt suicide compared with boys, regardless of being bullied or not -- although boys are more likely to die by suicide. In this study, Pontes and her fellow researchers looked at significant associations and not direct causal links.
Using two methods of statistical analysis, the researchers showed the probability of a link between bullying and depressive symptoms and suicide risk, and then compared the results of the two methodologies.
Through the more commonly used multiplicative interactions method, their findings matched the findings that some other researchers have used in previous studies, which showed no difference between males and females being bullied at school and having depressive symptoms or suicide risk behaviors.
However, when using the International Journal of Epidemiology-recommended methodology of additive interactions, Pontes and her team found the effects of bullying are significantly higher in females than males on every measure of psychological distress or suicidal thoughts and actions.
The study, "Additive Interactions between Gender and Bullying Victimization on Depressive Symptoms and Suicidality: Youth Risk Behavior Survey 2011-2015" by Pontes and her colleagues, is published in the journal Nursing Research.
"To our knowledge, our paper is the first in nursing to compare these two methodologies, and to challenge the status quo of analysis in our field," says Pontes.
The researchers acknowledge limitations with the study, such as the nature of its retrospective design and the inability to change or alter the design of the CDC study.
Pontes hopes the results of her team's examination will help draw attention to how researchers conduct analyses of data and how crucial it is to carefully consider which methods are the best fit, or to use both methods and compare them.
Bullying among boys is often physical. Pontes says while many schools are cracking down on physical bullying which people can see, those actions probably are preventing and stopping bullying that's more common among males.
Among females, Pontes says, the bullying is often the kind that's not visible. It's often relational bullying, such as excluding someone from activities and social circles, or spreading rumors about them. The actions are not overt, Pontes explains, so they could go on for a long time without anyone else knowing.
"Our school interventions should understand the differences in bullying and how we might better address females who are bullied," says Pontes.
The Rutgers-Camden nursing researcher believes that preventing bullying should begin at a young age. She says parents should start teaching preschool children that bullying is unacceptable.
"There are parents who see it as a rite of passage," says Pontes. "They say, 'Everyone gets bullied. You have to buck up. Stand up for yourself.'"
She says pediatricians and nurse practitioners should talk about the harmful effects of bullying with parents so that they can intervene early and reduce the victimization that causes adolescents to consider suicide, so they will be able to live happier and healthier lives.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190507110457.htm