Caregivers' advice and children's values about bullying and bystander behaviors during bullying incidents
Date
2016
Authors
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
School bullying is a concerning phenomenon to children, families, and educators. The KiVa Antibullying Program (KiVa) reduces school bullying by heightening children’s anti-bullying attitudes, empathy toward victims, and self-efficacy to support victims—values that empower children to intervene when they are bystanders to bullying incidents. Little is known about how caregivers’ advice to children might promote and/or undermine the values and bystander behaviors targeted by KiVa. Accordingly, the primary aim of the study was to investigate relations between caregivers’ advice and children’s values about bullying and behavior during bullying situations. Secondary aims were to explore how family economic factors, child sex, and caregivers’ advice-giving style moderated relations between caregivers’ advice and children’s values and behaviors. Participants were 106 4th- and 5th- grade students, their classmates, and their caregivers. Data were collected during classroom and home visits via child self-report, parent-report, peer-report questionnaires, and a coded interaction task in which caregivers advised children about how to respond to bullying situations at school. Results suggested that: a) bystander intervention was positively predicted by caregivers’ advice to stop the bully, especially for children whose families have experienced a high or average level of stressful life events, b) bystander passivity was positively predicted by caregivers’ advice to not intervene and not tell adults and negatively predicted by caregivers’ advice to help/comfort the victim, and c) bystander reinforcement/assistance was positively predicted by caregivers’ advice not to intervene and not to tell adults and negatively predicted by advice to stop the bully, especially for girls from average and low income families. Additional moderation results suggested that: a) a directive advice-giving style promoted child behavior that was consistent with parental behavioral advice, and b) a questioning style promoted values about bullying that were consistent with caregivers’ value-based advice. Results point to the importance of collaboration between families and schools to reduce school bullying. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.