Teenagers with parents’ emotional support less likely to be cyber bullies

Emotional support from parents — and specifically, how teens perceive their relationships with their parents can be taken to understand the cyber bullying behaviours. Adolescents who perceive their parents to be loving and supportive are less likely to engage in cyber bullying, according to a new study by researchers at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing. The findings are especially relevant given changes in family life created by the COVID-19 pandemic. “With remote learning replacing classroom instruction for many young people, and cell phones and social media standing in for face-toface interaction with friends, there are more opportunities for cyber bullying to occur,” said Laura Grunin, a doctoral student at NYU Meyers and the study’s lead author.

“Understanding what factors are related to a young person’s cyber bullying of peers is important for developing ways that family, schools, and communities can prevent bullying or intervene when it occurs,” said Sally S. Cohen, clinical professor at NYU Meyers and the study’s senior author. The researchers found that the more adolescents perceived their parents as loving, the less likely they were to engage in cyberbullying. When asked if their parents are loving, youth who said “almost never” were over six times more likely to engage in high levels of cyber bullying than those who answered that their parent is “almost always” loving.