Strategies to Combat Bullying: Parental Responses to Bullies,Bystanders,and Victims

Abstract

Despite numerous studies on the topic of bullying, there remains a dearth of information on how parents respond to bullying and the extent to which they are aware of their child’s bullying experiences. Using qualitative data from 54 parents in a southeastern state, we explore advice that parents give their children about how to respond when their child is a bullying victim and a bystander in a bullying incident and how fearful parents are of their child being a victim of bullying and reasons behind their fear. Findings demonstrate that parental messages about responding to bullying victimization and intervening on behalf of other bully victims generally mirror those provided by schools as part of their bullying prevention efforts. However, misunderstandings about bullying and bullying responses among parents limit the effectiveness of the strategies they suggest for their children. Implications for bullying prevention programs and research are also discussed.

Keywords

bullying bullying prevention parent responses to bullying

Introduction

Bullying is a serious problem affecting youth around the world and is a concern for both parents and educators. Bullying results from an imbalance of power between two or more parties, and is a repetitious behavior intended to cause harm (Olweus, 1978, 1993). Since the seminal work of Olweus (1978), researchers have explored the prevalence of bullying (Haynie et al., 2001; Nansel et al., 2001; Payne & Hutzell, 2015), types of bullying behavior (Patchin & Hinduja, 2011), locations of bullying (Fite et al., 2013; Perkins, Perkins, & Craig, 2014), and ways in which schools and parents can reduce bullying (Harcourt, Jasperse, & Green, 2014; Ttofi & Farrington, 2011; Williford, 2015). These researchers suggest that there are four main types of bullying behavior: verbal aggression, relational aggression, physical aggression, and cyberbullying. Estimates of the prevalence of bullying differ by type; however, estimates suggest that between 11% (Nansel et al., 2001) and 31% (Haynie et al., 2001) of youth have experienced some form of bullying.

Despite numerous studies on the topic of bullying, there remains a dearth of information about how parents respond to bullying and the extent to which they are aware of bullying experiences among their children. A variety of research has shown that children are reluctant to report their bullying victimization to anyone (Clark, Kitsinger, & Potter, 2004; Matsunaga, 2009; Puhl, Peterson, & Luedicke, 2013; Shemesh et al., 2013).

In this research, we use qualitative interviews with 54 parents in a southeastern state to explore advice that parents give their child about how to respond when (a) their child is a bullying victim and (b) their child is a bystander observing a bullying incident. We also explore how fearful parents are of their child being a victim of bullying and the reasons behind their fear, a topic heretofore largely neglected in the bullying literature.

Background

Reluctance to Report

Given the dynamic processes that underlie the frequency and type of bullying, youth may be reluctant to tell anyone that they are victims of bullying (Batanova, Espelage, & Rao, 2014; Bauman, Meter, Nixon, & Davis, 2016; Eliot, Cornell, Gregory, & Fan, 2010; Holt, Kantor, & Finkelhor, 2009). Youth may be reluctant to report bullying for a number of reasons. Explanations include the perception that adults will ignore an incident (deLara, 2012; Troop-Gordon & Ladd, 2015), teachers will not believe bullying occurred (Troop-Gordon & Quenette, 2010), the bullying may increase (Randa, Reyns, & Nobles, 2016), and relationships with friends could be jeopardized (Boulton, Boulton, Down, Sanders, & Craddock, 2017).

Countering Bullying

Many of the bullying incidents that take place at school occur in places with inadequate supervision (Bentley & Li, 1995; Craig & Pepler, 1997; Fite et al., 2013). Therefore, students often have to take action on their own. Common approaches that youth take to counter bullying include fighting back, ignoring the incident, telling an adult, or telling a friend (Black, Weinles, & Washington, 2010). Less common approaches to end bullying included accepting the situation, discussing problems with the class, and talking to the bully.

One of the essential elements of most bullying prevention programs is empowering students to intervene on behalf of bullying victims. A number of factors predict when a child or adolescent will choose to intervene in a bullying situation. Youth are more likely to intervene when bullying is directed at a close friend or a female (Patterson, Allan, & Cross, 2017), when they are empathetic toward others (Craig, Henderson, & Murphy, 2000), and when friends share similar antibullying attitudes (Pozzoli & Gini, 2013). Those with firsthand experience of bullying are more likely to intervene than other children regardless of the type of bullying (Chapin & Brayack, 2016). The perceived seriousness of a situation affects a child’s decisions to intervene as does the perceived consequences of the intervention (Patterson et al., 2017; Pronk, Olthof, & Goossens, 2015).

A number of factors predict when a child or adolescent will choose to intervene in a bullying situation. Factors include the bystander’s relationship with the victim, the severity of the situation, and their own experiences. Patterson et al. (2017) found that youth are more likely to intervene when bullying is directed at a close friend or a female, compared with other possible victims. Bystanders may have firsthand experience with bullying, and these individuals are more likely to intervene regardless of the type of bullying (e.g., verbal, social, or physical; Chapin & Brayack, 2016). A child’s interpretation of the situation also affects how serious they perceive the bullying to be and whether they need to intercede (Patterson et al., 2017; Pronk et al., 2015).

Bullying Intervention Strategies

To successfully develop strategies to reduce bullying in school and at home, it is essential to understand what are perceived as the main issues. Past research has shown that a parent’s own experience with bullying predicts their current perspective (Cooper & Nickerson, 2013). A parent’s experiences shape how fearful they are of their own child’s victimization and the types of strategies they would suggest to combat bullying in school (Cooper & Nickerson, 2013; Sawyer, Mishna, Pepler, & Wiener, 2011). Parents express the greatest concern for their child when it comes to verbal aggression and relational aggression, types of bullying they often personally experienced in their childhood. One in four (26.1%) parents were slightly fearful about verbal bullying, whereas almost one in three (27.5%) said they were moderately fearful of verbal bullying, and one in five (17.6%) were very fearful (Cooper & Nickerson, 2013). Male parents were less fearful of bullying than female parents; in addition, previous victims of bullying had more negative views of bullying than those individuals who had not been victimized by bullying.

Although some parents were bullied as children, there is often a divergence in a parent’s understanding of their child’s bullying experiences (Matsunaga, 2009). Although concerned about physical aggression and cyberbullying, parents believe these forms of bullying are less prevalent (Cooper & Nickerson, 2013). Parents’ concerns are in line with current research that finds relational aggression and verbal aggression among the most frequent types of bullying (Wang, Iannotti, & Nansel, 2009).

Given the different bullying situations that a child can experience, a parent offers a variety of advice to their child if they experience bullying. Cooper and Nickerson (2013) reported that 98% of parents recommended that their child seek help from family members, and 97% of parents would advise their child to talk to a teacher if they were bullied. Other strategies to deal with bullies included avoiding the situation, and working on the problem with the bully, with the help of an adult.

Harcourt and colleagues (2014) recently conducted a systematic review to understand parents’ perspectives on bullying. The review included 13 qualitative studies gathered from five different databases. All 13 studies included in the systemic review included responses from parents. Six of the studies, however, focused exclusively on parents, while the other seven also included responses from children and school employees (Harcourt et al., 2014).

The majority of studies explored in the systematic review focused on general types of school-based bullying and reported data obtained from parents of children from 8 to 17 years of age. Parents felt it was important to define bullying and find ways to prevent it. Reactions to bullying included seeking help from teachers and other school officials, improving education to prevent bullying and cyberbullying, and taking legal action. Overall, the most common strategy employed by parents to deal with bullying was to recommend that their child tell a teacher.

Parents and teachers are often unsure what behaviors should be considered to be bullying, so it is no surprise that children may be unable to recognize when they are being bullied. It is especially confusing for a child when the bullying occurs between friends (Mishna, 2004). Although a child may recognize they are being bullied and seek help from their parent and teachers, that child may be reluctant to separate themselves from the peer interaction because it is challenging to distinguish between teasing and actual bullying (Mishna, Wiener, & Pepler, 2008).

One of the most effective strategies to reduce bullying is to create trainings or meetings for parents so they can learn more about the problems their child may face. More parental support has been shown to lead to fewer incidents of bullying and an increased willingness to protect a bullying victim (Wang et al., 2009). Increases in playground supervision and better classroom management have also been successful in decreasing the number of bullying incidents (Ttofi & Farrington, 2011). To maximize positive benefits, an integrated family/school model is ideal to stop bullying (Ahmed & Braithwaite, 2004).

Despite numerous studies on the topic of bullying, there remains a dearth of information on how parents respond to bullying and the extent to which they are aware of bullying experiences among their children. In this study, we use qualitative data obtained from 54 parents whose children participated in a bullying study in a southeastern state to explore (a) advice that a parent gives their child about how to respond when their child is a bullying victim and when their child is a bystander in a bullying incident and (b) how fearful a parent is of their child being a victim of bullying and the reasons behind their fear.

Method

The data analyzed in this article were collected in the fall of 2015 as part of a larger project funded by the National Science Foundation that examines bullying among elementary and middle school students. The overall objective of the research was to investigate the use of robots as intermediaries to gather sensitive information from children. As part of the project, we administered a questionnaire to parents of the students who took part in the studies associated with this project.

After obtaining approval from the university institutional review board, we recruited the child participants from a database of children who had volunteered to be contacted to participate in research at the university; the database was maintained by one of the investigators. On the day of the child’s interview, the child and their parent were greeted by a researcher as they entered the lab; the researcher then explained the purpose of the study to the child and their parent, obtained parental consent and assent from the child, then escorted the child to another room for their interview. The researcher returned to the child’s parent in the waiting area and asked them questions about their child’s bullying experiences (and their own responses to their child’s bullying experiences). Parents with more than one child participating in the study were asked to complete a survey for each child. Thus, if a parent had three children participating, they completed three separate surveys. Of the 60 parents who were asked to complete a survey for their child, only six declined to participate. Thus, the response rate for this study was 90%.

Data

The demographics of the parents are reported in Table 1. Of the 54 parents who responded to the survey, more than half (75%) were female and the majority (66.7%) were White. Parents were most likely to be was between ages 36 and 45 years (41.7%) and married (55%). The number of children in the household ranged from one child up to five children. The majority (53.5%) had two children living in their household. Nearly one third of the sample (28.3%) lived in households with an annual income of US$100,000 or greater.

Table 1.

Demographics (N = 60).

Variable	n (%)
Gender
Female	45 (75.0)
Male	9 (15.0)
Missing	6 (10.0)
Race
White	40 (66.7)
Black	12 (20.0)
Hispanic	2 (3.3)
Missing	6 (10.0)
Age
26-35	16 (26.7)
36-45	25 (41.7)
46-55	13 (21.6)
Missing	6 (10.0)
Marital status
Single	9 (15.0)
Living with a partner	3 (5.0)
Married	33 (55.0)
Separated	1 (1.7)
Divorced	5 (8.3)
Widowed	2 (3.3)
Missing	7 (11.7)
Number of children in the household
1	9 (15.0)
2	32 (53.5)
3	7 (11.7)
4	3 (5.0)
5	3 (5.0)
Missing	6 (10.0)
Annual household income
US$25,000 or below	8 (13.3)
US$25,001-US$49,999	9 (15.0)
US$50,000-US$74,999	12 (20.0)
US$75,000-US$99,999	7 (11.7)
US$100,000 or above	17 (28.3)
Missing	7 (11.7)

In an attempt to fill the gaps in the extant literature, we developed three primary research questions. First, we wanted to know how fearful parents were of their child being victimized by bullying. Next, we wanted to know what advice a parent gives their child about how to handle bullying situations (a) when the child was a victim of bullying themselves and (b) when the child was a bystander in a bullying situation. To answer the research questions, we asked three open-ended questions about how they (the parent) would handle hypothetical bullying situations involving their child. We then coded the responses to those open-ended questions with MaxQDA 10 (MaxQDA, 2016) using an open axial-coding approach. After coding the responses to each question into themes, we estimated frequencies of the themes for each question and then conducted cross-tabulations in SPSS 23.0 to determine whether there were significant differences by parent gender in the open-ended responses to the questions outlined above. A number of parents responded with more than one answer to one or more of the three questions. The results of those analyses are presented below.

Results

Parents’ Fear of Their Children’s Bullying Victimization

First, we asked parents, “How fearful are you of your child being bullied?” About half (46.4%) of the parents’ responses were coded as “not fearful,” suggesting that almost half of the parents were not concerned about their children being victimized by bullying. However, some of the parents were at least somewhat concerned about their child being victimized by bullying. About one in four parents (26.0%) were coded as being somewhat fearful. Finally, a similar percentage of parents (22.2%) indicated that they were very fearful of their child being a victim of bullying at school.

The results presented in Table 2 suggest that, contrary to the popular image portrayed by media accounts of bullying, about half of the parents interviewed were not fearful of their child becoming a victim of bullying at school. When queried about their concerns, Parent 15 (P15) remarked “Not fearful at all. At this point, there is no evidence of any bullying and he has not expressed that he is being bullied. He seems to be very happy.” A number of parents echoed that response.

Table 2.

Fear of Bullying Among Parents (N = 54).

Categories	n (%)
Not fearful	25 (46.4)
Somewhat fearful	14 (26.0)
Very fearful	12 (22.2)
Other	3 (5.6)
Total	54 (100.0)

Parents who offered explanations for their lack of fear usually attributed their lack of fearfulness to one of three reasons. First, some parents were not fearful of their child becoming a bullying victim because of the size of the school their child attends. P2 responded,

Not very fearful. My child seems to get along well with her classmates . . . Sometimes she has another student call her names and hurts her feelings but that is usually resolved in a few days.

Two other parents concurred with that idea that because their child attended a small school with “ . . . a positive atmosphere and strong discipline . . . ” they were not fearful of their child being bullied.

Next, a parent may also not be fearful of their child’s bullying victimization because of their naiveté or their lack of knowledge about bullying at school. Two parents did not think there was any bullying at their child’s school and, thus, were not fearful of their child becoming a bullying victim. P56 responded that they were “not very fearful. He’s (her son) commented several times there is no bullying at his school,” while P48 offered the following statement:

I’m not too fearful of him being bullied during the school year because of the school he attends. It is a private school where bullying is not allowed at all and it is also a small school where everyone knows one another. Parents included.

Finally, some parents felt their child was adequately equipped to handle bullying situations on their own and were, thus, not fearful of that victimization. P42 responded, “While it is possible that she will be bullied at school, I feel that she will know how to respond, and to inform me of the details so I can follow up if needed”; whereas, P45 answered that they had “very little” fear of their child being bullied because “both of my boys are fairly confident and vocal. I think bullies often pick on kids that are not as confident and vocal . . . weaker.”

However, about half of the parents were somewhat fearful or very fearful of their child becoming a victim of bullying at school. One parent (P61) epitomized that response with the following: “Somewhat fearful. He is a rather normal kid, so I don’t think he is an immediate target for bullying. However, I don’t know what type of kids he is exposed to at school.” Another parent (P38) responded, “I am quite fearful because my daughter has her own unique style (dress, speech, interest). Other kids are not always so understanding of differences. This all makes me fearful of her being ostracized or targeted for bullying.” P37 also responded that they were very fearful of their child being a victim of bullying because

I work in a middle school and I see kids bullying other kids all the time from small things to larger things and it makes me fearful for my daughter and if she has to go through any of this.

P36 provided even more detail in their explanation:

. . . considering the generation coming up and what kids are nowadays exposed to and have access to, bullying is very scary. My child has a tendency of being naive into believing everyone should be “friends” or friendly which makes it easier for her to have an experience with bullying.

The primary concern that parents expressed about their child as a potential victim of bullying was the child’s uniqueness in appearance or other characteristics. P1 said they were fearful because their child was “short for his age—makes him more susceptible to bullying. He has experienced bullying in the past.” Another parent (P59) responded that they were concerned because their child was tall:

As a child I was picked on and it would be for the same reasons . . . as a child I was very big and taller than my class by age 8 and now I see the same thing in her.

Finally, P16 said they were very fearful because their child was “ . . . somewhat shy and tries to find the best in everyone. Some people take advantage of ‘nice’ people which to me is a form of bullying.”

Next, we asked the parents the following question: “If your child has been bullied or if your child were bullied, what advice did you/would you give him or her about being bullied?” Responses were then coded into the seven categories presented in Table 3. Parents gave a variety of responses but the most frequent (31.5%) response was to tell an adult at school. Parents also commonly recommended that children avoid the bully (24.1%), understand why people bully (16.7%), and to confront the bully (13%).

Table 3.

Advice If Child Was Bullied by Gender (N = 54).

Categories	n (%)
Avoid the bully	13 (24.1)
Tell an adult at school	17 (31.5)
Understand why people bully	9 (16.7)
Confront the bully	7 (13.0)
Parents will resort to a higher authority	3 (5.6)
Tell a parent	3 (3.7)
Other	2 (3.7)

The results of querying parents about how they would respond to their own child’s bullying victimization suggest that parents are likely reinforcing the messages that child is getting from teachers at school. The most frequent response given by parents was that they would tell their child to report the bullying victimization to an adult at school (although only one in three parents chose this response). P8 responded, “I always tell him to tell the teachers what is going on. If someone is bothering him he needs to make a teacher aware of what is going on.” P7 concurred when they said “I would tell her . . . to talk with her teachers, to talk to whoever she needed to.”

The second most common strategy that a parent used was to tell their child to avoid the bully. P36 responded that they told their child to “ . . . walk away or turn it off or somehow physically remove yourself from that situation as soon as you can and avoid it as much as possible in the future.” P29 responded that they would tell their child to “ . . . ignore the person and walk away if at all possible.”

Some parents also told their child that they needed to try to understand why the bully was victimizing them. One parent (P30) told their child “ . . . bullies usually act mean because they have experienced problems in their life or have had people act mean toward them.” P15 said,

I would explain to him that bullies usually are very unhappy people and have a tendency to have low self-esteem. Most bullies sometimes don’t have a loving/caring home environment. I would tell him to be kind to any bullies. Be a friend whenever possible.

Another parent (P17) responded,

Bullies are angry individuals who have been made to feel inferior and disrespected by someone else. The reason they have hurt or bullied you is because they are angry or upset with a situation in their own life in which they have lost control. Bullying is a way they feel like they can gain control and take out their anger on someone/something else.

Finally, some parents felt their child should deal with the bully by standing up for themselves. Of the parents who offered this response, most suggested their child challenge the bully by verbally standing up for themselves. P11 told their child to “ . . . stand up for himself—speak his mind and not be afraid to tell if someone is doing something to him that he doesn’t like without doing something to that person.” P36 also told their child to not “ . . . be afraid to speak up and out.”

Nevertheless, a small number of parents told their child to physically respond to the bully. P48 told their child to “handle it himself,” whereas P47 told their child,

Defend yourself the first time and you won’t have to go through it over and over again. Sure he may or may not win but out of respect of confrontation it will stop.

Finally, we wanted to explore what strategies a parent would recommend to their child when their child witnessed bullying victimization of others. To do so, we asked parents “If your child were to witness bullying, what advice would you give him or her?” Responses to that question are presented in Table 4. Parents most often recommended that their child confront the bully and defend the victim (49.1%), followed by telling an adult at school (34%). Adults at school could include any personnel who were employed through the school district including teachers, bus drivers, and administrative staff. Parents who advised their child to confront the bully and intervene on the victim’s behalf suggested trying to befriend both parties.

Table 4.

Advice If Child Is a Bystander to Bullying by Gender (N = 54).

Categories	n (%)
Tell adult at school	18 (34.0)
Confront bully/defend victim	26 (49.1)
Tell someone	4 (7.5)
Avoid the situation	4 (7.5)
Other	1 (1.9)

Responses could largely be lumped into two categories: confront/defend the victim and tell an adult at school. Parents were most likely to tell their child to confront the bully/defend the victim. P6 told their child, “Help the person being bullied as much as possible to protect them. Do not just stand by and let the situation continue. Report the incident as soon as possible.” P11 told their child to “speak up for the person being bullied because you may not know when you can be put in that situation and you would surely want someone to speak up for you.” Another parent (P19) told their child to “comfort, help, and befriend the person being bullied,” whereas P17 said they told their child to “Stand up for the person who is being treated wrongly. All people are valuable and deserve compassion and respect.”

The second most common response was to tell their child to report the bullying to an adult at school. P65 said, “I would make sure he knew that this needed to be reported to a teacher or staff member. I would let him know that he would not be in trouble for telling this information.” Another parent (P1) told their child, “Report what you see immediately! Tell the teacher/principal/bus driver, etc.,” whereas P16 told their child to “Tell someone who can stop it” and P21 told their child to “Always report it to an adult in charge or teacher.”

Conclusion

In this study, we used data from 54 parents in a southeastern state to examine parental responses to bullying experiences among their children. Our study is significant due to (a) the paucity of research regarding parental concerns and fears about bullying victimization among their children and (b) the limited number of studies that consider the viewpoints of parents in the bullying literature in general (Cooper & Nickerson, 2013; Harcourt et al., 2014; Sawyer et al., 2011).

The findings from this study add to the bullying literature in a number of important ways. First, the findings uncovered here replicate those of Sawyer et al. (2011) with a much larger sample of parents. We extend their findings by providing more specific detail regarding how a parent advises their child to respond to bullying (parents most often advocate that children who are bystanders to bullying should intercede on behalf of the child who is being bullied). We also provide further specificity regarding the strategies that parents suggest to their child in responding to bullying—we found that parents are most likely to tell their child to report the bullying to an adult and avoid the bully.

Perhaps the most unique contribution of this study is in the area of parental fears of bullying. Little research of which we are aware examines parental fears and concerns about bullying (for exceptions, see Cooper & Nickerson, 2013; Sawyer et al., 2011). The results presented here suggest that almost half of the parents we interviewed were at least somewhat fearful of their child being bullied at school and almost one in four parents were very fearful. Thus, this research documents anecdotal evidence presented in a number of educational and media outlets that parents are concerned about bullying at school and some are very concerned.

Limitations

Although we believe this research has made important contributions in the effort to understand parental responses to bullying, we also realize there are a number of limitations to this research. First, this research uses a small sample of relatively affluent parents in a southeastern state; thus, the results uncovered here may not be generalizable to parents in other parts of the United States or from other demographic strata. Second, although the parents in this sample were largely representative of the community where the research was conducted in terms of race and marital status, there were only two parents who were of racial categories other than White or Black. Consequently, the results cannot be generalized to populations outside those races. Nevertheless, given the scant research in parental responses to bullying, particularly in the area of parental fear of bullying victimization, we believe these limitations do not obviate the results presented here but they do suggest rich areas for future research.

Future Research

The findings presented in this study lead to a number of important questions, and some methodological improvements, for future research. First, researchers attempting to replicate the findings presented here should provide a definition of bullying to the parents in their sample to insure that all parents are at least cognitively considering the same concept of bullying, rather than their own concept, which may differ from the conceptualization used by other parents. The qualitative comments provided by the parents suggested that some parents only considered physical bullying when responding to our questions, and no parent discussed strategies to prevent cyberbullying, an emerging form of bullying that parents likely did not experience when they were younger. In addition, researchers should also ask parents how many times their child has been bullied, to see how persistent (or sporadic) these bullying incidences occur. Future research would also be strengthened by asking parents about their own bullying victimization to understand whether strategies parents offer to their children differ based on the parents’ experience with bullying victimization.

Implications

First, and perhaps most important, our findings indicate that there is still much work to do for educational psychologists, teachers, and school administrators in the messages that parents receive about bullying prevention. For example, many of the parents in this and other studies are unable to correctly identify behaviors that would be defined as bullying (Harcourt et al., 2014). Both teachers and parents often normalize bullying and perceive that little can be done to prevent it (Brown, 2010; Clarke, Kitzinger, & Potter, 2004; Mishna, 2004; Mishna, Pepler, & Wiener, 2006; Sawyer et al., 2011). Thus, educational psychologists and school administrators, particularly, need to develop strategies to better communicate definitions of bullying (and realistic examples of these scenarios) to help parents understand the multiple issues and concerns about what constitutes bullying among children. It is often difficult for parents to understand how “teasing” differs from “bullying”; furthermore, many parents are largely unaware of the deleterious nature of cyberbullying and social aggression. Information is widely available around these topics and should be distributed to parents through a variety of media (e.g., school websites, emails to parents, social media). Until all parties recognize what bullying is, dramatically reducing the negative effects of bullying among most children will be improbable, if not impossible.

In addition to a number of suggestions for future research, we also believe the findings presented here have implications for bullying prevention programs and practices in schools. First, and most important, our findings suggest that parents need to be made aware that all children can become victims of bullying, not just those who are “weak” or “unpopular.” A number of strategies can be used to accomplish this goal, but perhaps the most effective would be short, social media blurbs posted on school and district websites where students from the school district tell the viewers that message. Parents enjoy watching videos of their child, or children they know; educators should use this fact to their advantage by using these children to inform parents of the facts about bullying, which are often quite different than the conceptions of bullying they currently hold. These videos could also inform parents about the strategies that children are given by their teachers and school administrators, so the message from all adults would be consistent. The creation of antibullying policies, establishing communication between families and schools, and having an open dialogue with youth about bullying are among the most common recommendations by parents and school officials to reduce bullying in school (Humphrey & Crisp, 2008; Ttofi & Farrington, 2011). School administrators and teachers can also play an important role in this area by consistently enforcing the rules regarding behavior at school, as research has found that schools in which children perceive rules are fair are less likely to experience bullying (Kupchik & Farina, 2016).

Furthermore, the most common advice given by parents in this sample to their child in responding as a bystander was to tell their child to confront the bully and defend the victim. Although advising a child to stand up for their peers who are bullying victims is a good idea, not empowering them with the knowledge and abilities needed to do so effectively may be problematic. A number of programs currently exist that can assist with those efforts (e.g., “BullyBust: Promoting a Community of Upstanders,” “Bully-Proofing Your School,” “The Peaceful Schools Project”). School administrators should carefully consider this aspect of bullying prevention as they incorporate these efforts into their school’s policies and procedures.

Finally, parents appear to use similar strategies in telling their child how to respond to both their own bullying victimization and the bullying victimization of others. Interestingly, although most bullying prevention programs focus on both bullying victims and bullying bystanders alerting adults at school, this was only one of several responses provided by the parents. Thus, it is clear that parents need to better understand the messages that schools are giving their child regarding how to respond to bullying. In addition to insuring that parents are giving their child similar messages as teachers and administrators at school, it is also important to understand that children likely realize that engaging an adult to help them when they are bullied or witness bullying may be sound advice but is not practical in all cases or experiences. Both anecdotal and scholarly research indicate that some adults at school (or parents, for that matter) may not interpret negative behaviors as a problem, may not approve of tattling behavior in cases where the adult has not observed the misbehavior, or may have varying interpretations of types of bullying (shaming, name-calling, or other harder to define encounters). Thus, insuring a clear, consistent response to bullying among teachers and administrators, and conveying that message to parents, is essential in an effective bullying prevention program.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was sponsored by National Science Foundation Award IIS-1408672 titled “The Use of Robots as Intermediaries to Gather Sensitive Information From Children.”

Author Biographies

Kristen L. Stives is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at Mississippi State University. Her research interests include sex offender research, bullying, and predictors of effective writing among students at the university level.

David C. May is a professor in the Department of Sociology at Mississippi State University. David’s research interests include fear of crime, school safety, cyber violence, corrections, military sociology, and human robot interaction.

Melinda Pilkinton is an associate professor in social work in the Department of Sociology at Mississippi State University. Dr. Pilkinton is a licensed certified social worker (LCSW) and a LCSW-supervisor in the state of Mississippi. Her research interests involve military issues, substance misuse, and women’s issues including poverty, barriers to employment, incarceration, and domestic violence.

Cindy L. Bethel is an associate professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department and the Billie J. Ball Endowed professor in Engineering at Mississippi State University. She is the director of the Social, Therapeutic, and Robotic Systems (STaRS) Lab, a research fellow with the Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems (CAVS) in the Human Factors Group, and a research fellow with the Social Science Research Center. Her research interests include human-robot interaction, robot-assisted therapy, and a wide variety of other applications in the field of robotics.

Deborah K. Eakin is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Mississippi State University. Her research interests include metamemory memory illusions, retrieval processes, interference/inhibition, aging, and eyewitness memory.

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