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Professor Donna Cross and her team at The Kids Research Institute Australia have challenged and overturned damaging attitudes that saw bullying tolerated in childhood.
Bullying is now regarded as a health problem and not just a disciplinary problem. Increasing evidence shows both traditional bullying (e.g. hitting, teasing) and cyberbullying have lasting effects on young people (both those who bully and those who are bullied), including damage to self-esteem, academic results and mental health.
Social anxiety, peer victimisation, and social support are key issues during mid-childhood that provide important influence in the later adolescent years. While extensive research has evaluated these constructs in isolation and during adolescence, almost no longitudinal studies have evaluated relationships between them during mid-childhood.
Pioneering anti-bullying researcher Emeritus Professor Donna Cross OAM was last night announced as the latest inductee into the WA Science Hall of Fame.
What began as a small formative research project 20 years ago has grown into a universal bullying prevention and social skills development program which has helped countless Australian children and their families.
As a parent, it can be very stressful to learn that your child is being bullied. Our instinct is to protect our children at all costs - but how exactly should we do this?
More than half of all children who are bullied do not tell anyone.
Schools from around the globe have turned to The Kids Research Institute Australia, seeking access to invaluable lessons learned from Australian students on how to effectively reduce harm from cyberbullying.
Several meta-analyses have demonstrated that bullying prevention programs are successful in reducing bullying. However, scant research addresses if and how such anti-bullying efforts affect long-term internalizing health problems and even less on later use of pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy.
The prevalence of bullying worldwide is high (UNESCO, 2018). Over the past decades, many anti-bullying interventions have been developed to remediate this problem. However, we lack insight into for whom these interventions work and what individual intervention components drive the total intervention effects.