Does the Associations among Perceived Parental Monitoring, Cyberbullying, and Life Satisfaction of Adolescents Differ in Boys and Girls?

The present study mainly aims to examine the relationship between perceived parental monitoring and life satisfaction during early and middle adolescence (aged between 12-18) and the mediating role of exposure to cyberbullying and cybervictimization in this relationship according to gender. Perceived parental monitoring refers to the knowledge of parents about the out-of-school and online activities of adolescents, whereas life satisfaction pertains to the level of satisfaction of students with their self, school, friends, family, and environment. The sample consisted of 1,395 (female: 52.5%; male: 47.5%) secondary school and high school students (M = 14.87, SD = 2.04). The participants completed a package of four self-report questionnaires, namely, a Demographic Information Form, the Parental Monitoring Scale, the Multidimensional Students' Life Satisfaction Scale, and the Cyberbullying Scale in the classroom setting. As hypothesized, the results demonstrated that adolescents with perceived high levels of parental monitoring reported high levels of life satisfaction and low levels of cyberbullying. The results of structural equation modeling indicated that cybervictimization plays a partially mediating role in the positive relationship between parental monitoring and adolescent life satisfaction for both genders. However, cyberbullying partially mediates the relationship between parental monitoring and adolescent life satisfaction only in male adolescents. However, this mediating effect was not tested for the female participants due to the non-significance of the relationship between cyberbullying and life satisfaction. The relationship in this direction reveals that gender should be considered an important factor. In summary, these findings suggest that perceived parental monitoring plays a protective role in the general well-being of adolescents by reducing risky online behaviors, such as bullying in cyberspace.