Review and Case Study: Improving Early Childhood Parenting as a Strategy to Reduce Adolescent Bullying

Abstract

Bullying starts in early childhood, and parents play an important role in shaping problematic behaviors of children. Improving parenting in early childhood, therefore, may be an effective strategy to reduce children’s bullying aggression in the long term. Few bullying prevention programs target the early childhood period, however. This chapter presents the effects of Triple P (Positive Parenting Program) on children’s bullying aggression at 10-year follow-up. Parents of young children received education and training on children’s development, positive parenting, and discipline strategies in a randomized, universal, group-based parent training intervention. Unlike earlier studies that showed that parenting intervention could reduce early childhood bullying, the current study examined bullying aggression during adolescence, when children were 10–14 years old. The results show lower levels of physical bullying reported by children, primarily boys, whose parents received Triple P training. Verbal bullying and victimization were unaffected. These findings suggest that early childhood parenting intervention can reduce adolescent bullying aggression.