Bullying and victimization: The role of parenting and childhood behavior across time

Abstract

This dissertation evaluated harsh parenting practices and child behaviors in early childhood that lead to bullying and victimization in preadolescence. Specifically, Chapter 2 examined harsh parenting, child’s externalizing and internalizing behavior problems, and child’s angry and fearful temperament beginning at age 5 predicting to bullying and victimization behavior in preadolescence (age 8-13). Results suggest that harsh parenting was associated with bullying while child externalizing behavior was predictive of later victimization. The child’s internalizing behavior problems and angry and fearful temperament were not predictors of bullying or victimization in preadolescence. Chapter 3 built upon the study conducted in Chapter 2, by examining the stability of parenting and child behavior problems across two developmental time points: early childhood (age 2-3) and middle childhood (age 5) predicting to bullying and victimization behavior in preadolescence (age 8-13). This study also examined the bidirectional relationship between parenting behavior and child behavior as they predicted to bullying and victimization in preadolescence. This study found harsh parenting during middle childhood was associated with bullying in preadolescence. While externalizing behavior problems was stable from early childhood to middle childhood it was not significantly associated with later bullying behaviors. On the other hand, when predicting to victimization, harsh parenting and externalizing behavior problems produced different results. That is, externalizing behavior problems was significantly associated with victimization in preadolescence and harsh parenting was moderately associated with victimization. This study did not find a bidirectional relationship between parenting behavior and child behavior as they predicted bullying and victimization in preadolescence.