Close parental relationships reduce the mental health impact of cyber dating abuse on teen victims

In an article published in the September issue of the Journal of Child and Family Studies, authors Strickland et al. noted that cyber dating abuse is a significant health concern among adolescents, but that “no research to date has examined the extent to which parenting moderates the relationship between adolescent cyber dating abuse and depression and anxiety.” The authors hypothesized that parent-child relationships may help buffer against these two mental health consequences. They tested three specific types of time spent by youth with their parents: participating in activities; communicating in conversations or discussions; and feeling emotionally close. The authors conducted their analysis using restricted data from the study, Technology, Teen Dating Violence and Abuse, and Bullying in Three States, 2011-2012 (ICPSR 34741). Distributed by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) and conducted by the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center, the goal of the study was to expand knowledge about the types of cyber abuse experienced by youth, via social networking sites and cell phone texting. The survey questions focused on understanding the role of cyber abuse in youth dating violence and abuse, as well as to understand the role of cyber bullying in youth’s lives. There were 5,647 study participants, from 7th to 12th grade, with a nearly equal gender distribution, from ten schools in five school districts in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. Strickland et al. limited their analytic sample to the 1,960 study participants who reported being in a current dating relationship, who answered 16 questions related to cyber dating abuse victimization experiences within the last year. Other measures they used were of respondents’ depression and anxiety symptoms, time spent using electronic devices, and the three types of parental interaction.

Their analyses found that parent-child closeness moderated the effect of cyber dating abuse on adolescents’ symptoms of depression and anxiety. But parent-child communication and activities were not moderators. The authors surmised that “a close parent-child relationship (above and beyond shared activities and regular communication) may provide opportunities for parents to model healthy conflict resolution and emotion regulation skills for their children.” The authors also found that females experience more mental health problems in response to cyber dating abuse victimization. More publications making use of the data in this NACJD study are available here.