Parental style and child bullying and victimization experiences at school

Abstract

The aim of this study was to propose and test a theory-driven model describing the network of effects existing between parental style and child involvement in bullying incidents at school. The participants were 377 Greek Cypriot children (mean age 11.6) and their mothers. It was found that a line of influence exists between maternal responsiveness, over-protection and child victimization experiences at school. Also, responsiveness predicted low scores of child bullying behaviour. Permissive mothers (who by definition are high in responsiveness) had children with the highest mean score in victimization experience compared with mothers who function under the other three parental styles. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.