Mitigating bullying–delinquency risk with parental support and knowledge: testing a three-way interaction

ABSTRACT

Purpose: The current study was designed to extend the results of an earlier study in which parental support was found to moderate the prospective relationship between bullying perpetration and subsequent delinquency. Method: A unique aspect of the current study was that instead of focusing on the two-way interactions beween bullying and parenting, as was done in a previous investigation, the three-way interaction between bullying, parental support, and parental knowledge was scrutinized. Using data provided by 3956 (2047 boys, 1909 girls) members of the nationally representative Longituidnal Study of Australian Children (mean age = 12.41 years) a multiple regression analysis was performed using a maximum likelihood with robust standard errors estimator. Results: The results revealed a significant three-way interaction between bullying perpetration, parental support, and parental knowledge as prior (age 12-13) predictors of subsequent (age 14-15) delinquency, controlling for age, sex, indigenousness, bullying victmization, peer delinquency, and prior participant delinquency. Conclusions: The nature of the interactions observed in this study imply that high parental support, combined with low parental knowledge, may protect children who engage in bullying behavior from progressing into a delinquent lifestyle two years later.

KEYWORDS:

• Bullying perpetration
• delinquency
• parental support
• parental knowledge

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The Longitudinal Survey of Australian Children (LSAC) is one of several data sets located in Australia’s National Centre for Longitudinal Data (NCLD). Applicants and collaborators who wish to view and/or use these data must complete and sign a Confidentiality Deed Poll and then email the scanned, signed copy to NCLD ([email protected]) and Australian Data Archive ([email protected]).