Effectiveness of Parent Management Training (PMT) on Reducing Bullying and Improving Cognitive Emotion Regulation in Students

Bullying phenomenon is one of the most common problems of students which may have undesirable and destructive effects on their psychosocial well-being. Alongside, the training system used by the parents may play significant role in preventing the children from learning bullying or engaging in it. Accordingly, the current research was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of parent management training (PMT) on reducing bullying and improving cognitive emotion regulation in students.   

This study was a quasi-experimental research with pretest-posttest control group design. The sample included thirty six 10 to 12- year-old students studying at grades four and five of primary school in Karaj in the academic year 2017-2018, who were selected by cluster sampling and then randomly assigned to either the experimental or the control group (n= 18 per group). Research tools included the children forms of Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire (Olweus, 1996) and Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Granefski et al., 2001). Parents of the experimental group received nine 90-min weekly sessions of PMT successively (i.e. one per week), whereas the control group underwent no intervention. Data were analyzed by Multivariable Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) through using SPSS Version 20 Software.   

Results of data analysis showed that PMT significantly reduced the symptoms of bullying (F=120.61, p<0.001) and maladaptive strategies in emotion regulation (F=17.98, p<0.001) and improved adaptive strategies (F=83.15, p<0.001) in students.

Based on the results of this study, it can be concluded that PMT and change in parenting style and parental behavior patterns play significant roles in preventing the children from learning bullying or engaging in it and can lead to the decrease of bullying behaviors in them.