Back-To-School Worries: Bullying Top Concern For 1 In 3 Parents

One in three parents worry their children will be subjected to bullying and cyberbullying as they head back to school, according to a new national poll. Internet safety, stress, car accidents and school violence also ranked high among parents’ concerns in the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health released Monday.

For the report, researchers at the hospital, based at the University of Michigan, queried 2,051 adults, including 1,505 parents of children ages 0-18. C.S. Mott has conducted the poll for 11 years. This is the first year parents were asked to rank concerns for their own children.

Bullying and cyberbullying are precursors to a host of mental health problems, according to the poll’s authors, including anxiety, depression and suicide. Also, predatory behavior by adults through the internet is a growing phenomenon that worries parents, according to the report. (For more local news, find your local Michigan Patch and sign up for morning newsletters and real-time news alerts. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

The Mott Poll also found differences in children’s health risks among parents of different races or ethnic groups. Among black parents, racial inequities and school violence were listed as top concerns, while both Hispanic and white parents identified bullying/cyberbullying and internet safety issues as their top worries. Hispanic parents also cited stress as a common area of concern.

This finding likely reflects the impact of contemporary social issues on health priorities and highlights that both experiences and perceptions can differ significantly among different groups of parents, according to the poll’s authors. Recent national and local efforts to identify and address racial disparities in health are beginning to focus on these concerns.

The Mott Poll also showed that worries their children will get cancer was common among parents of children younger than 5. The fear isn’t baseless, according to the report, but pediatric cancer is quite uncommon, and cure rates overall approach 90 percent. Their fears may stem from the helplessness parents feel about steps they can take to prevent their children from getting cancer, as the causes of most cancers in children are unknown, according to the report.

All groups of parents worried their children will become involved in car accidents, the leading cause of death for children ages 2-14, according to the report, which noted more than 650 children died and more than 120,000 others were injured in crashes in 2015.

Among all parents, the top 10 health concerns for children this year are:

1. Bullying/cyberbullying (61 percent)
2. Not enough exercise (60 percent)
3. Unhealthy eating (57 percent)
4. Drug abuse (56 percent)
5. Internet safety (55 percent)
6. Child abuse and neglect (53 percent)
7. Suicide (45 percent)
8. Depression (44 percent)
9. Teen pregnancy (43 percent)
10. Stress (43 percent)

For more on the report, go here.

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