Bullies Tend to Have Troubled Relationships with Parents, Friends
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SLJ Staff -- School Library Journal, 03/26/2008
The next time there’s a bully among your students, you may want to consider this: kids who bully tend to have troubled relationships with their parents and friends and may continue being disruptive throughout their teens if those problems aren’t resolved early, say researchers at York University and Queen's University in Canada."Focusing on the child alone is not enough. Bullying is a relationship problem,” says the study's lead author Debra Pepler, a professor of psychology at York and senior associate scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children. "Children who bully are using power and aggression to control others. We need to look at their relationships with their parents and with friends who may also bully.”
Although many children occasionally bully their peers, a small amount—about 10 per cent—bully persistently, says Pepler. "If we can identify the children who are at high risk of bullying and give them intensive support when they are in elementary school, we may be able to interrupt a 'career path' of bullying that can lead to many relationship problems in their teens and even as adults."
The study, Developmental Trajectories of Bullying and Associated Factors, appears in the March/April issue of Child Development, and is coauthored by Queen's University Professor Wendy Craig, York Professor Jennifer Connolly, and statistician Depeng Jiang.
Over a period of seven years, the researchers examined 871 Toronto students, from ages 10 to 18, to study how patterns of bullying develop as children age. Over that time, 9.9 percent of the students reported that they consistently engaged in high levels of bullying from elementary through high school. Some 13.4 percent reported moderate levels of bullying in their early years that decreased to almost no bullying in high school. About 35 percent reported bullying at consistently moderate levels and 41.6 percent reported almost never bullying.
The researchers compared the groups with differing patterns of bullying on individual risk factors such as physical aggression, but also considered family-related risk factors, like the amount of parental monitoring, parental trust, and conflict with parents. They also looked at peer bullying, conflict with peers, and susceptibility to peer pressure. The study found that in addition to being aggressive, many children who bully are morally disengaged—they lack compassion for those they victimize and guilt for their actions.
The study concludes that persistent bullying requires two types of interventions: one that focuses on the child's behavior and problem-solving skills, and another that focuses on their relationships with parents and peers.
