A content analysis: Exploring parents' discourse about bullying as posted on blogs

The purpose of this qualitative research was to explore discourse on blogs of parents whose children have been the bystander, the victim, the bully, or the victim/bully in a bullying incident. This phenomenological study explored how families are impacted by bullying, using a qualitative methodology based on social learning and ecological perspectives. There were 67 blog posts of parents from 5 different blogs that were used in the content analysis for this research study. The blog posts were found on both secure and unsecure blogs. The blogs which were chosen for this study were done so because they had topics that were related to bullying. There were four themes that emerged from the content analysis, parents sharing stories, parents giving advice, parents asking for help, and parents sharing their stories as a means of giving advice.

This study found parents have an assortment of different experiences. Parents felt there was virtually no support for parents. Parents felt helpless. Parents were moving their children because of the lack of support. Parents were highly interested in helping each one another on this topic. The implications are that there are virtually no effective support systems for parents.