By, Nathan Jeffay
2 min read
Interfere now, reap the thanks later. This is the advice of one of the world's leading experts on bullying.
This year, Professor Golan Shahar, a psychologist from Israel's Ben Gurion University, completed a major bullying study in partnership with Georgia State University in the United States, and has emerged convinced that teenagers need their parents to take an active role in their affairs.
"In the past there was a supposition that kids, as time goes on, don't need their parents, but research suggests otherwise - that it's good for parents to be very hands-on, despite their adolescent children's protests," he said.
This appears to fly in the face of advice given by a British bullying expert this summer. Dieter Wolke, professor of psychology at Warwick University, told the Times Educational Supplement that children should be left to deal with low-level bullying. He likened lack of experience being bullied to being unvaccinated, saying: "It's like an inoculation: a small dose should be given to fight the disease."
The TES endorsed this view, declaring that "the traditional advice of leaving children to do things independently and fight a few of their own battles may well be right after all".
It continued: "Overprotective and anxious parents can undermine their offspring, communicating to them that they are unable to cope without intervention. This fails to equip young people with the self-sufficiency to deal with bullying when it occurs." But according to Dr Shahar, parents who know the fine details of their children's lives are the best detectors of bullying directed against them - and are best placed to prevent it.
He said: "A supportive family can almost always counter the effect of being bullied and bullying," suggesting that children rely on intervention, even when giving the impression of self-sufficiency. "The message for parents would be to constantly monitor their children's social behaviour, social networking and wellbeing."
He takes this to a point that many parents and teenagers would deem controversial - he is "not entirely against" parents monitoring their adolescent's interactions on Facebook and other social media if they believe there are indications of bullying.
Dr Shahar urges parents to deal with this promptly. "The ramifications of bullying are formidable," he said. "It is an event that can devastate the physical and emotional systems. This is something that needs to be taken seriously and addressed properly."
One of the most interesting finds in his recent cross-continental study was that adolescents who suffer most are actually on both ends of bullying. "We are all inclined to divide the world into good and bad, strong and weak, vulnerable and resilient," he said. "Our findings, however, question this by noting that the most disturbed adolescents are both perpetrators and victims."
He elaborated: "We cannot classify children and adolescents as bullies or victims because a large number of kids are both. It's more accurate to talk about violent social environments."
He added that many children are often violent after living in "ultra-violent atmospheres".
This finding does not provide immediate answers for how to deal with bullying, but according to the research paper, it may explain a "brief segment of an ongoing 'vicious' developmental cycle involving depression, bullying, and peer-victimisation".
Dr Shahar and his collaborator, Christopher Henrich, wrote that steps towards understanding this cycle "could help inform the timing and scope of preventive intervention".