Do bullied children have poor relationships with their parents and teachers? A cross-sectional study of Swedish children

Highlights

• Bullied children had poorer relationships with parents and teachers than non-victims.

• Victimization was associated with the feeling that the family was not listening.

• Victims had higher odds than non-victims of not feel confidence in the teacher.

• Frequent victimization was associated with finding it difficult to talk to parents.

Abstract

Parents and teachers play an important role in helping victims of bullying to prevent, cope with and end bullying. Despite that, victims' relationships with adults have often been overlooked in previous research. The aim of this study was to investigate bullied and not bullied children's perception of the quality of their relationship with teachers and parents and to examine if there were any differences in the perception associated with bullying frequency or type of victimization. Data came from the Swedish Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey from 2013/14, which included 7867 students aged 11, 13 and 15. A multi-level multinomial logistic regression model was created to estimate association between the type of bullying victimization and the quality of relationships with parents and teachers. The result showed that bullied children had poorer relationships with parents and teachers than nonvictims. Victims had higher odds of finding it difficult to talk to parents about things bothering them, of feeling that the family was not listening to what they had to say, and of having low confidence in their teacher. Frequent cyber victims had the highest AdjOR (2.09–3.37) compared with non-victims to have poor quality relationships with teachers and parents.

Introduction

Experiences from bullying, independently of whether they are direct, indirect or through various technological devices, have a damaging impact on the majority of victims (Ortega, Elipe, Mora-Merchán, et al., 2012). There is not yet a universally agreed definition of traditional bullying (Tokunaga, 2010) or cyberbullying (Mishna et al., 2012, Li et al., 2012). One of the most commonly used descriptions of traditional bullying is that a child is considered bullied when he or she repeatedly and over time is exposed to negative actions from one or more other persons from which the bullied child has trouble defending him/herself (Olweus, 1993). One way to conceptualize cyberbullying is to define it as traditional bullying, communicated through the online mode (Ybarra, Boyd, Korchmaros, et al., 2012).

Previous research shows that more children and adolescents are involved in traditional bullying than in cyberbullying (Olweus & Breivik, 2013). However, there is an overlap between the groups of victims since cybervictims are often bullied in traditional ways as well (Cross et al., 2015, Smith et al., 2008, Olweus and Breivik, 2013, Tokunaga, 2010). Many studies on traditional bullying report that boys generally are more likely to be bullied than girls (Scheidt et al., 2001, Olweus, 1993, Boulton and Underwood, 1992), but newer findings on gender differences have been mixed for both traditional and cyberbullying, finding gender no longer a strong predictor of victimization (Tokunaga, 2010, Hong and Espelage, 2012, Bjereld et al., 2015, Craig et al., 2009). Recent studies in Sweden indicate a change in pattern, identifying girls as being cyberbullied more frequently than boys (Beckman et al., 2013, Låftman et al., 2013, Friends, 2015).

Both adults in the home and teachers have a dramatic impact on youth (Swearer & Espelage, 2010). The adult-child relationship influences the ability of children to manage bullying situations (Mishna, 2012). Regardless of if children are bullied in traditional ways or through cyber technology, parents and teachers play an important role in helping the victim cope with, prevent and end bullying (Siyahhan et al., 2012, Smith et al., 2008). Findings from recent studies have suggested that while children that rarely communicate with their parents are more likely to be bullied (Wang et al., 2012, Gómez-Ortiz et al., 2015), two-way communication between victim and parents has a buffering function against both bullying (Gómez-Ortiz et al., 2015) and the negative psychological effect of bullying (Ledwell & King, 2015). High parental support has been associated with fewer symptoms of depression among the victims (Conners-Burrow, Johnson, Whiteside-Mansell, et al., 2009) and lower prevalence of victimization (Wang, Iannotti, & Nansel, 2009). However, much more is known about families of children and adolescents who bully others than families of children who are victimized (Swearer & Espelage, 2010) and victims' relationships with teachers and family as predictor of positive adjustment have often been overlooked in the literature (Nation et al., 2008, Sapouna and Wolke, 2013). There is a lack of understanding for the quality of relationships between bullied children and adults.

Due to the harmful consequences of bullying, several strategies have been developed with intentions to stop bullying. But to end bullying has been found to be difficult and there is not yet a universal solution to the problem. Although disclosing bullying victimization to an adult not always mean that the bullying come to an end (Bjereld, 2016), telling parents and teachers about bullying victimization is often an effective help-seeking strategy (Smith et al., 2008, Dowling and Carey, 2013). Children are thus encouraged, both in schools and from information available online, to disclose victimization (Black et al., 2010, www.umo.se, n.d, www.friends.se, n.d). The encouragement is logical from a rational choice perspective, where actors (in this case the victims) are considered to have meaningful goals to seek (Archer & Tritter, 2000). Individuals seek to achieve the best outcomes for themselves and when faced with a choice an actor will seek the best decision (Graziano, 2012). From an outside perspective, a rational choice for a victim would be to tell a parent or teacher as an attempt to end the bullying (goal) since adults often can provide help and support. But rationality is the right use of reason to make choices in the best possible way (Graziano, 2012) and from the victims' perspective; the rational choice is not always to tell about the bullying.

Regardless of the encouragement to tell, and the possibility of help and support, a large proportion of victims do not tell an adult about the victimization (Waasdorp & Bradshaw, 2015), and cybervictims have been less likely to tell than traditional victims (Smith et al., 2008, Waasdorp and Bradshaw, 2015). Previous research that includes children's own perceptions of telling is scarce (deLara, 2012), but suggests that victims do not disclose victimization of reasons such as the ubiquitous nature of bullying, concern over adult response, a sense of autonomy and shame (deLara, 2012). An interview study with bullied youth showed that victim’ strategies to disclose bullying could not only be understood as a matter of tell or not to tell. It was a matter of whether to continue disclosing victimization or not. Continuing to disclose victimization was closely associated with adults' reactions after finding out about the bullying. Victims who felt they had not been listened to or taken seriously, or who had lost confidence in adults did not continue to disclose bullying (Bjereld, 2016). To disclose victimization to an adult could be seen as a victim's last resort (deLara, 2008) since telling has been associated with more serious bullying experiences (Smith, Shu, & Madsen, 2001). Frequently bullied children have been more likely to tell their parents or teacher about bullying than children bullied less regularly (Fekkes et al., 2005, Hunter and Borg, 2006).

The contradiction between a) parents and teachers as a source of help and b) bullied children not telling about the victimization, gives rise to questions regarding the quality of the relationship between the victims and their parents and teachers. Have victims the same quality of relationship with parents and teachers as non-victims? If not, is the difference in quality related to how often the bullying occurs and whether the bullying is traditional or cyber? The aim of this study was to investigate bullied and not bullied children's perception of the quality of their relationship with teachers and parents and to examine if there were any differences in the perception associated with bullying frequency or type of victimization.