More than one in three teens say they have been bullied in the past year

Washington, October 7, 2022 - A new survey was conducted to examine the prevalence and attitudes of bullying among parents of children 8-17 and their teens. The findings include:

• More than one in three (38%) teens surveyed say that they have been bullied in the past year.
• Nearly 40% of teens surveyed find it challenging to talk to their parents when they're struggling with loneliness and exclusion.
• Nearly three in ten parents surveyed do not feel they have the resources to deal with bullying issues.
• Though nearly a quarter of teens surveyed are being bullied at school, a much smaller percentage report opening up to teachers and school administrators about these issues.
• 83% of parents surveyed say they are likely to turn to teachers or others at their child's school for resources if their child was involved in bullying.

• Of the 38% of teens surveyed who say they have been bullied, around one in five say bullying had a major impact on their mental health and confidence.

• 39% of teens surveyed say they learn kindness, compassion and inclusivity by participating on a sports team

About the Choose Kindness Project

The Choose Kindness Project brings together an alliance of leading nonprofit organizations to address bullying and spark kindness for young people and their families. The Choose Kindness Alliance is designed to foster collaboration and innovation among these thought leaders in an effort to help them expand their reach and impact with youth, families, educators and coaches. Founding members of this growing Alliance include: AAKOMA Project, Act to Change, Ad Council, Anti-Defamation League, Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children's Hospital, Facing History & Ourselves, Get in the Game, GLAAD, GLSEN, Hispanic Federation, Human Rights Campaign Foundation — Welcoming Schools, Kevin Love Fund, kindness.org, Lions Clubs International Foundation, Harvard University’s Making Caring Common, NAACP, National School Climate Center, Positive Coaching Alliance, and Special Olympics.

About the Study

This Ipsos poll was conducted July 19 to August 1, 2022, as part of the Choose Kindness Project, using the probability-based KnowledgePanel^®. This sample for this poll is a nationally representative probability sample of 2,548 American adults age 18 or older, who are the parent or legal guardian of a child ages 8-17. The sample also includes 787 teenagers ages 13-17, whose parents both took the survey and gave their child consent to take the survey.

The survey was conducted using KnowledgePanel, the largest and most well-established online probability-based panel that is representative of the adult US population. Our recruitment process employs a scientifically developed addressed-based sampling methodology using the latest Delivery Sequence File of the USPS – a database with full coverage of all delivery points in the US. Households invited to join the panel are randomly selected from all available households in the U.S. Persons in the sampled households are invited to join and participate in the panel. Those selected who do not already have internet access are provided a tablet and internet connection at no cost to the panel member. Those who join the panel and who are selected to participate in a survey are sent a unique password-protected log-in used to complete surveys online. As a result of our recruitment and sampling methodologies, samples from KnowledgePanel cover all households regardless of their phone or internet status and findings can be reported with a margin of sampling error and projected to the general population.

The study was conducted in English and Spanish. The data for parents were weighted to adjust for age, gender, race/ethnicity, census region, metropolitan status, education, household income, language proficiency, whether they have at least one child 8-12 years old, and whether they have at least one child 13-17 years old.  The geodemographic benchmarks came from 2021 March Supplement of the Current Population Survey (CPS) from the US Census Bureau and the language proficiency benchmarks came from the 2019 American Community Survey (ACS). The weighting categories were as follows:

• Gender (Male, Female)
• Age (18-29, 30-44, 45-54, 55+)
• Race/Hispanic Ethnicity (White Non-Hispanic, Black Non-Hispanic, Other or 2+ Races Non-Hispanic, Hispanic)
• Education (High School graduate or less, Some College, Bachelor and beyond)
• Census Region (Northeast, Midwest, South, West) by Metropolitan status (Metro, non-Metro)
• Household Income (Under $25,000, $25,000-$49,999, $50,000-$74,999, $75,000-$99,999, $100,000-$149,999, $150,000+)
• Language Proficiency (English proficient, Bilingual or Spanish proficient, non-Hispanic)
• Has at least one child age 8-12 years old (Yes, No)
• Has at least one child age 13-17 years old (Yes, No)

The teen data was weighted to represent the population of teens age 13 to 17 years old. The geodemographic benchmarks came from the 2021 March Supplement of the CPS while the language proficiency benchmarks came from the 2019 ACS. The weighting categories were as follows:

• Gender (Male, Female, prefer to self-identify)
• Age (13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
• Race/Hispanic Ethnicity (White Non-Hispanic, Black Non-Hispanic, Other or 2+ Races Non-Hispanic, Hispanic)
• Census Region (Northeast, Midwest, South, West)
• Metropolitan status (Metro, non-Metro)
• Household Income (Under $25,000, $25,000-$49,999, $50,000-$74,999, $75,000-$99,999, $100,000-$149,999, $150,000+)
• Language Proficiency (English proficient, Bilingual or Spanish proficient, non-Hispanic)

The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, for results based on the entire sample of parents. For the teen sample, the margin of error is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. The margin of error takes into account the design effect, which was 1.30 for all parents and 1.35 among teens. The margin of sampling error is higher and varies for results based on sub-samples. Sampling error is only one potential source of error. There may be other unmeasured non-sampling error in this or any poll. In our reporting of the findings, percentage points are rounded off to the nearest whole number. As a result, percentages in a given table column may total slightly higher or lower than 100%. In questions that permit multiple responses, columns may total substantially more than 100%, depending on the number of different responses offered by each respondent.

For more information on this news release, please contact:

Mallory Newall
Vice President, US
Public Affairs
[email protected]

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