Witnessing Inter-Parental Violence and Children’s Bullying: The Intervening Role of Parenting

Overview: The study examines how parenting characteristics of caregivers, such as low levels of parent-child communication, difficulty meeting parenting demands, and parenting frustration, might explain the association between witnessing violence between parents and bullying perpetration. Findings indicated that parenting frustration explicated the association between witnessing violence between parents and children’s bullying.Proposal text: Background
Bullying and exposure to violence between parents are serious problems for children, and research consistently shows that exposure to parental violence is positively associated with children’s bullying (Chesworth et al., 2019; Davis et al., 2020). As highlighted by the social learning theory, an individual learns certain behaviors through observable modeling (e.g., violence between parents) and then exhibits such behaviors (e.g., aggressive behavior) (Bandura, 1977). The attachment theory posits that a bond between a child and their caregiver is critical to child development (Weinfield et al., 1999). The spillover theory suggests that the parent-child relationship and the child’s peer relationships might mutually affect each other (Kaufman et al., 2020). Exposure to parental violence might contribute to emotional and behavioral problems in children, leading to lower parent-child attachment, which would adversely affect parent-children relationships and children’s peer relationships. However, less examined are intervening variables that might explain how exposure to parental violence is linked to children’s bullying behavior. The current study focuses on the association between witnessing violence between parents and children’s bullying behaviors. More specifically, the study examines how parenting variables—parent-child communication, meeting parenting demands, and parental frustration—might explain the association between witnessing violence between parents and bullying in children.
Method
The 2016 National Survey of Children's Health data, which employed a nationally representative and cross-sectional design (Ghandour et al., 2018) were used. The total weighted sample was 59,963, and the current study sample included parents or guardians of 15,010 children, aged 6-11 years. The dependent variable was bullying. The independent variables were witnessing violence between parents, low levels of parent-child communication, difficulty meeting parenting demands, and parenting frustration. Path analyses were employed.
Results
Witnessing violence between parents (AOR=2.19, 95% CI [1.62, 2.95]), and parenting frustration (AOR=3.34, 95% CI [2.8, 3.98]) were positively associated with bullying. Witnessing violence between parents was significantly associated with bullying through the intervening variables (indirect effect (β)=0.041, 95% CI [0.031, 0.052]). Parenting frustration partially mediated the association between witnessing violence between parents and bullying (indirect effect (β)=0.040, 95% CI [0.029, 0.050]).
Discussion
Children who had witnessed violence between parents were significantly at risk of bullying. The findings provide support for the social learning theory, which explains the development of bullying in children through violence between parents. Also, children whose parents were frustrated with parenting due to intimate partner violence were at an elevated odds of bullying. Our findings also support attachment theory and spillover theory. Our results are consistent with findings from a recent meta-analytic study that highlights the importance of developing programs to reduce violence while fostering parental emotional support and positive parenting behaviors (Chen et al., 2020). Interventions to prevent bullying in schools must consider intimate partner violence between parents and specifically focus on the caregivers’ capacity to respond to the child’s needs to improve parent-child communication, decrease parental frustration, and increase parenting competency. Practitioners and policymakers need to shift from a reactive approach to a more proactive approach to effectively address bullying among children.