The Influence of Parenting Styles on Cyberbullying Victimization: The Mediating Role of Social-emotional Skills and The Moderating Role of Parent-child Relationships

Parenting styles are significant factors that cannot be overlooked concerning adolescent cyberbullying victimization.This study primarily investigates the mediating role of social-emotional skills in the relationship between parenting styles and adolescent cyberbullying victimization, as well as the moderating role of parent-child relationships. The study utilized OECD SSES2019 survey data from Suzhou , China, with 15-year-old adolescent students in Suzhou City as primary participants. The study focused on four variables: parenting styles, social-emotional skills, cyberbullying victimization, and parent-child relationships. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS Process macro to perform moderated mediation analysis. The results indicated :(1) Understanding-listening parenting style negatively predicts adolescent cyberbullying victimization, while strict-punitive parenting style positively predicts the probability of cyberbullying victimization; (2) The adolescents' social-emotional skills partially mediates the relationship between parental parenting styles (excepting maternal strict-punitive parenting) and cyberbullying victimization; (3) The parent-child relationship plays a moderating role in both the direct pathway "parenting styles→cyberbullying victimization" and the indirect pathway "parenting styles→social-emotional skills→cyberbullying victimization",but this moderating effect varies across different parenting styles. The parent-child relationship significantly moderated the pathways of maternal understanding-listening parenting and maternal strict-punitive parenting, as well as the pathway of paternal listening-understanding parenting. However, neither pathway of paternal strict-punitive parenting was moderated by parent-child relationship.This study confirms that while understanding-listening parenting reduces adolescent cyberbullying victimization and strict-punitive parenting increases it, adolescents' social-emotional skills mediate these relationships. Critically, high-quality parent-child relationships amplify protective effects by both directly moderating parenting styles' influence and indirectly strengthening parenting’s positive impact on social-emotional skills.​Thus, the interplay of parenting styles, parent-child relationship, and skill development collectively determines victimization risk.