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ABSTRACT
Parents can significantly affect children's peer relationships, including their involvement in bullying. The authors developed and evaluated ways to enhance parents’ knowledge, self-efficacy, attitudes, and skills related to parent–child communication about bullying. The 3-year Friendly Schools Friendly Families whole-school intervention included a family component, which provided training and resources to support school teams to engage families in awareness-raising and skill-building activities. Over 3,200 parents of the Grade 2, 4, and 6 cohorts were recruited. For the Grade 2 and 4 cohorts at both 10 and 22 months postintervention, the family component increased parents’ self-efficacy to talk about bullying with their children and their frequency of doing so. Grade 4 parents reported more provictim attitudes at 22 months. No differences were found for the Grade 6 cohort. These data suggest a whole-school capacity-building intervention in early and middle childhood can improve the likelihood and frequency of positive parent–child communication about bullying.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the following people for their contribution to this project: Dr. Clare Roberts, Erin Erceg, Dr. Marg Hall, Dr. Therese Shaw, Dr. Sharyn Burns, Dr. Stacey Waters, Coosje Griffiths, Anne Valenti, Joanne Graham-Smith, Dr. Laura Thomas, and Helen Monks. The participation of 20 study schools and pilot schools, their staff, parents, and students is gratefully acknowledged.