Family relationships and cyberbullying

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the relationship between family and cyberbullying, a type of technological harassment among peers which is of growing concern in the scientific community and in today’s society. First, this chapter discusses factors associated with family functioning that may predict cyberbullying, particularly the family climate (cohesion, expressivity, and conflict) and parent–children communication. It also examines the role of parental socialization styles and their continuity with parental styles on the Internet: Authoritarian style, laissez-faire, permissive and authoritative. In relation to parental styles, one section in this chapter describes the parental monitoring of Internet use and the various types of parental mediation strategies used by parents to control their children’s online behavior. The chapter ends with a section on preventing cyberbullying in the family itself. It concludes that parent–children communication helps create a positive family climate to implement emotionally suitable socialization styles and, in short, to prevent risky behaviors in children.