Prospective associations between peer victimization in adolescence and later parenting: Self-esteem and internalizing problems as pathways

We examined to what extent peer victimization in early adolescence was associated with self-esteem and internalizing problems in late adolescence and whether these, in turn, explained variation in later parenting. We used longitudinal data from the TRacking Adolescents’ Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS) and its next-generation spin-off study (TRAILS NEXT) to model links between peer victimization reported by individuals themselves, their parents, and their peers at age 11, self-esteem and internalizing problems at age 19, and parental stress and self-efficacy ~10 years later. The used subsample consisted of n = 199 parents (79% female, mean age = 30.48 when offspring were 30 months old) with n = 273 children. Internalizing problems at age 19 were significantly linked to parental stress in all models. We found no evidence of indirect effects of peer victimization at age 11 predicting later parental stress or self-efficacy via self-esteem and internalizing problems at age 19 when adjusting for stability in self-esteem and internalizing problems at age 11. These findings highlight the importance to consider parents’ developmental histories when examining variation in parenting, but severity and chronicity of peer victimization need to be taken into account to elucidate replicable pathways.