Parental strategies and trajectories of peer victimization in 4 to 5 year olds

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2011.04.002Get rights and content

Abstract

This study was designed to examine how parental strategies contribute to explaining trajectories of peer victimization in young children. A total of 73 4 and 5 year old children identified as victims of peer aggression in the fall semester and their parents were recruited from 46 classrooms in 18 schools in the Netherlands. All children were followed-up twice in order to determine for whom victimization was stable. Hypothetical vignettes describing various forms of victimization were presented to one parent of each child in order to assess parental responses to victimization events. Findings indicated that autonomy supporting and autonomy neutral strategies were associated with a decrease of victimization in the first semester of the school year. No protective effects were found in the second semester. Autonomy undermining strategies were not related to the course of peer victimization. These findings underscore the importance of joint and coordinated efforts of teachers and parents as partners in supporting victimized young children at school.

Introduction

Entering elementary school is a challenging period for all young children. They have to adjust to the school environment and gain acceptance in the peer group (Ladd & Price, 1987). In this age group, peer victimization has been shown to be at its most widespread (Smith, Madsen, & Moody, 1999). Victimization in young children (4 to 5 years old) has generally been defined as a form of peer abuse in which a child is frequently the recipient of aggressive acts that can be expressed both directly (e.g., hitting and calling names) and indirectly (e.g., isolation from the group and rumor spreading; Hanish et al., 2005, Kochenderfer and Ladd, 1996a, Monks et al., 2003, Perry et al., 1988). For parents, victimization of their young child is a great worry, and their reactions to the situation can be divergent. However, we do not know how these divergent reactions may influence the course of peer victimization.

It has been argued (Kochenderfer and Ladd, 1996b, Kochenderfer-Ladd and Wardrop, 2001, Perry et al., 1990) that in the early stages of group formation, victims are mostly selected at random. Aggressors still have to learn who are the most attractive candidates for systematic bullying. Most children are therefore victimized for a short period of time, while some children become chronic victims of peer aggression. Using self-reports of peer victimization, Kochenderfer and Ladd (1996a) found that whereas 20.5% of the 200 participating kindergarten children were identified as victims in the Fall period, only 8.5% of the children were classified as victims both in Fall and 3 to 4 months later. Kochenderfer-Ladd and Wardrop (2001) even found that while 60% of the children reported that they had been victimized at one or more of the four yearly assessments (starting at the entrance of kindergarten through third grade), only 4 to 14% of the sample emerged as stable victims.

The extent to which children may or may not remain victimized is linked to the concept of social competence. Ladd and Pettit (2002) described childhood social competence as the ability to “initiate and sustain positive interactions with peers … form affiliative ties … and high-quality relationships with peers … and avoid debilitating social roles … and interpersonal and emotional consequences” (p. 270). Parenting plays an important role in the development of social competence, especially when children make the transition to school (Ladd & Kochenderfer-Ladd, 1998). Ladd and Pettit (2002) made a distinction between direct and indirect contributions of parental socialization on their children's social competence. Indirect parental influences refer to behaviors and relationship patterns within the family system that do not include relationships external to the family (e.g., attachment and parenting style). For example, Ladd and Kochenderfer-Ladd (1998) found that two general aspects of parenting style, intrusive-demandingness and responsiveness, were predictive of the onset of peer victimization in kindergarten. Most other research has focused on the impact of indirect parental influences on social competence in general, rather than on the specific social competence of dealing with being victimized.

Direct parental influences refer to parents' efforts to scaffold their children's social development and meet specific socialization goals within the context of peer interactions (Ladd and Pettit, 2002, Werner et al., 2006). Ladd and Pettit suggested that parents may directly shape children's interactions with peers as a designer of the setting in which these interactions take place, as a mediator for making interactions happen, as a supervisor during interactions with peers, and as a consultant when the child brings up worries. Although these roles appear to be potentially important components of parental responses on children's exposure to victimization, research evidence is limited on the impact of the way in which parents start to design the setting, mediate, supervise, or consult when the child is victimized. Some studies have touched on the issue by examining parental strategies in response to hypothetical peer conflicts, but these conflicts were situations in which mothers supposedly were around and could directly intervene (Colwell, Mize, Pettit, & Laird, 2002). Victimization usually takes place when there is little or no supervision. This might call for a broader set of potential parental strategies, including changing the design of the interaction setting by trying to change the school or the teachers' behavior or by giving children advice for moments that the parent is not around.

Mills and Rubin (1990) used four hypothetical vignettes in order to investigate the strategies parents employed in response to situations in which their 4 year old children engaged in aggressive or socially withdrawn behavior. They found that parents responded to their children's aggression with high and moderate power strategies (e.g., strong commands, reasoning, and gentle directions). In case of social withdrawal, parents responded with low power strategies (e.g., asking child what happened), information seeking (e.g., asking the teacher), and planned strategies (e.g., arranging opportunities for the child to play with peers).

Russell and Finnie (1990) investigated mothers' supervising strategies in relation to the social status of their 4 to 5 year old children during an observational play procedure. They found that mothers of popular children were highly group oriented and were likely to suggest active and skillful strategies to their child such as cooperation. In contrast, mothers of neglected and rejected children seemed to be less aware of group needs. Mothers of rejected children were more likely to show disruptive behavior and to use their authority to take charge of the play, whereas mothers in the neglected group showed a relative absence of help or ideas about how to join in a play and were more oriented toward the play materials.

Although previous studies did not specifically address the reactions of parents to victimization and the course of victimization, their findings suggest that parental responses may be highly diverse. This diversity regards the choice of different types of direct parental interventions (i.e., designing, mediating, supervising, and consulting; Ladd & Pettit, 2002) as well as the parenting style or quality that characterizes these interventions. The findings of Mills and Rubin, 1990, Russell and Finnie, 1990 indicate that the intervention style varies along a dimension of support, from developing autonomous social problem solving to undermining the development of such autonomy. Although it is understandable that out of protectiveness in the face of victimization, some parents may have a tendency to take charge of the situation, such responses could be counterproductive. Controlling, autonomy undermining parenting has been found to diminish adolescents' sense of self-determination, which in turn increased their vulnerability for maladjustment (Soenens and Vansteenkiste, 2005, Soenens et al., 2007). Following self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2008), parental interventions and guidance that respect or stimulate children's autonomous motivation would support children's competence in dealing with the victimization, because children would be more likely to engage in social problem solving and persist until the victimization stops.

The level of support of or intrusion in children's autonomy may be important for other reasons as well. From a social learning perspective, the positive effects may be expected from autonomy enhancing or autonomy neutral strategies for scaffolding children's social development through providing suggestions for behavioral solutions and monitoring the children's success from a distance (Rubin & Burgess, 2002). From a group dynamic perspective, parents may undermine the development of autonomous social competencies by contributing through their interventions to a dependent and immature reputation of the children in the eyes of their classmates (Ladd & Kochenderfer-Ladd, 1998). This undermining may occur when parents become actively involved in the situation in which victimization occurs, complain to the teacher or to the bully's parents, or instruct their children to respond in a specific way when they are victimized. Based on these considerations, higher levels of autonomy supporting strategies might be associated with a decrease in victimization over time. Higher levels of autonomy undermining strategies might be associated with an increase or stabilization in victimization. It is yet unknown whether this association also exists for the youngest group of elementary school children. Some support in this direction has been found by Rubin, Burgess, and Hastings (2002). Their study revealed that higher levels of maternal intrusive control and derision were positively associated with social reticence of children at age four. These children, however, already had an inhibited temperament.

The purpose of the current study was to examine the longitudinal effect of parental strategies on the course of peer victimization in young children. Studying these parental strategies may lead to the identification of stylistic aspects of parental interventions that are helpful or unhelpful to their children's status. Higher levels of autonomy supporting strategies were expected to be related to lower levels of victimization during one academic year. Furthermore, higher levels of autonomy undermining strategies were expected to be related to continuation or at least stabilization of victimization during one academic year.

Research on parental strategies has been conducted with verbal or written hypothetical vignettes describing social situations in which a child interacts (Mills and Rubin, 1990, Werner et al., 2006). This child is usually matched in age and gender with the age and gender of the children of the parent in order to facilitate making an appropriate deduction to the parents' own response. Research on parental strategies derived from observation of parental supervision during a play procedure (Russell & Finnie, 1990), from responses to videotaped vignettes of social situations between models (Colwell et al., 2002) has shown that parental responses to conflict or bullying between children are strongly influenced by the context. For this study, parents were presented with verbal hypothetical vignettes that depicted their child being victimized in order to achieve maximum control over contextual characteristics that could determine response. Parents' responses on open ended questions regarding their responses to the situation were used to determine the use of particular strategies.

As stated earlier, the instability of kindergarten groups due to the inflow of new children is likely to play an important role in the high prevalence rate of peer victimization among 4 to 5 year old children (Kochenderfer and Ladd, 1996a, Kochenderfer and Ladd, 1996b, Kochenderfer-Ladd and Wardrop, 2001, Perry et al., 1990). The study of Roseth, Pellegrini, Bohn, Van Ryzin, and Vance (2007) revealed that the aggression rate in preschool increased during the fall semester when group hierarchy is being formed. However, after the establishment of social dominance, the aggression rate decreased throughout the year. Because of this distinct feature in the social context during and after the process of group formation, the effects of parental strategies were examined in both the first and second semesters of the academic year.

In sum, the present study was designed to relate parental strategies to the course of peer victimization in young children during one academic year. Children identified as victims of peer aggression in the fall semester were followed up twice to determine for whom victimization was stable.

Section snippets

Participants

The sample included 73 victimized children (20 girls, 53 boys), aged either 4 or 5 years (M = 5.01 years, SD = 0.60 years at the start of the school year) and one of their parents (57 mothers, 16 fathers). Most children (82.9%) were from two-parent families. Forty percent of the parents had college or university degrees. According to the Census Bureau data (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek Statline, 2009), the educational level of the parents in this sample was slightly higher than the educational

Preliminary analyses

Table 2 shows the descriptive statistics for the study variables. All variables were within reasonable bounds for skewness and kurtosis (between − 1 and + 1; Tabachnick & Fidell, 2006). The means of peer victimization scores at T1 (M = 26.18; SD = 6.13; range 17–44), T2 (M = 24.77; SD = 6.01; range 16–40), and T3 (M = 23.77; SD = 5.99; range 16–36) decreased over time. The results of a oneway within-subjects ANOVA indicated a significant time effect, Wilks's Λ = .87, F (2, 71) = 5.5, p < .01, η2 = .002. Follow-up

Discussion

This study examined the association between the course of peer victimization in 4 to 5 year old children and parental strategies of responding to such events. The results suggested that strategies to stimulate the autonomy of children and autonomy neutral strategies might support the decrease of peer victimization early in the school year. However, in the second semester, protective effects of parental strategies were not sustained. No support was found for autonomy undermining strategies as

References (45)

  • N.R. Crick et al.

    Relational and physical forms of peer victimization in preschool

    Developmental Psychology

    (1999)
  • N.R. Crick et al.

    Relational and overt aggression in preschool

    Developmental Psychology

    (1997)
  • E.L. Deci et al.

    Facilitating optimal motivation and psychological well-being across life's domains

    Canadian Psychology—Psychologie Canadienne

    (2008)
  • D.L. Espelage et al.

    Research on school bullying and victimization: What have we learned and where do we go from here?

    School Psychology Review

    (2003)
  • M. Fekkes et al.

    Bullying: Who does what, when, and where? Involvement of children, teachers, and parents in bullying behavior

    Health Education Research

    (2005)
  • R.A. Finnegan et al.

    Victimization by peers: Associations with children's reports of mother–child interaction

    Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

    (1998)
  • S.N. Georgiou

    Bullying and victimization at school: The role of mothers

    The British Journal of Educational Psychology

    (2008)
  • L.D. Hanish et al.

    The social context of young children's peer victimization

    Social Development

    (2005)
  • Inspectie van Onderwijs

    Onderwijsverslag 2003/2004

  • B.J. Kochenderfer et al.

    Peer victimization: Cause or consequence of school maladjustment?

    Child Development

    (1996)
  • B. Kochenderfer-Ladd et al.

    Chronicity and instability of children's peer victimization experiences as predictors of loneliness and social satisfaction trajectories

    Child Development

    (2001)
  • G.W. Ladd et al.

    Parenting behaviors and parent–child relationships: Correlates of peer victimization in kindergarten?

    Developmental Psychology

    (1998)
  • Cited by (0)

    View full text