A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
An Observational Study of Parents Reading a Storybook About Bullying to Their Young Child: Are Bystander Responses Discussed?
Authors: Green, Vanessa A.; Jacobsen-Grocott, Tessa; Salmivalli, Christina; Wilson, Marc
Publisher: WILEY
Publishing place: HOBOKEN
Publication year: 2025
Journal: Social Development
Journal acronym: SOC DEV
Article number: e12815
Volume: 34
Issue: 3
Number of pages: 11
ISSN: 0961-205X
eISSN: 1467-9507
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12815
Web address : https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12815
Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/499590924
In the context of bullying the developmental progression of how and why most children remain as passive bystanders is unclear. Early socialization practices such as how parents read storybooks that depict bullying to their young children may be a contributing factor. Structured video-recorded observations of 97 parent-child dyads (85 mothers) (M age of children = 37.9 m) were conducted in participants' own homes. Participants were instructed to read a specifically adapted book that included child and adult witnesses, and the repetition of inappropriate-but developmentally typical-preschool behavior. Of the 1767 comments made by the parents (that were not part of the story script), 614 referred to the moral messages conveyed in the story; however, only nine of these comments were bystander-related and were made by five parents. One parent made suggestions about what a witness could do to help the victim. There were no statistically significant relationships between the likelihood of parents highlighting bullying/bystander behaviour and their own experiences of child/adolescent bullying. The findings from this study suggest that children may be inadvertently socialized into passive bystanding behaviour when witnessing bullying because defending behaviours are not typically taught to young children. This omission may be considered as a type of silent socialization.
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Funding information in the publication:
The current research was supported by a grant from the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Research Fund awarded to the first author (PrincipalInvestigator). The third and fourth authors were Associate Investigators on this grant.
