Parents’ Awareness and Involvement in Dealing with Cyberbullying

Abstract

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which parents of children aged 10–12 are aware that cyberbullying is a widespread phenomenon, how they deal with acts of cyberbullying performed by or toward their child, whether they take active steps toward preventing cyberbullying by and/or toward their child, and to what extent they are willing to invade their child’s privacy to this end.The study employs a quantitative methodology. One hundred and thirty-three parents were selected from a convenient sample of parents of children in grades 4–6 in a number of public elementary schools. It was found that most parents have heard about cyberbullying, mainly through the various media and not as a result of communicating with their child. Although parents understand that there are psychological effects on victims and criminal consequences for aggressors, most do not deepen their knowledge on the issue. Most parents assume that they can control the phenomenon and distance their child from it and that their child was not involved in cyberbullying. These findings contrast with findings from other studies indicating that most children were involved in cyberbullying to a certain degree. Identifying the reason behind this gap and ways to decrease it requires further investigation.Many studies have focused on cyberbullying among adolescents (ages 13–17) and less so on children aged 10–12. In this study, we chose to focus on children aged 10–12 because evidence indicates that children in this age group are more exposed to the phenomenon.