The findings of this study indicate that cyberbullying victims, bully-victims and children
not involved in bullying aged 11 and 12 years differ with respect to the coping strategies
they use to handle stressful situations in their daily life. We found that, compared with
children not involved in bullying, children who are both victims and perpetrators of
cyberbullying (bully-victims) more frequently react to stressful situations in general by
expressing emotion (e.g. getting angry or irritated) and less frequently employ palliative
coping (e.g. thinking on something else). This suggests that bully-victims react
aggressively to not only cyberbullying but also to other stressful situations. This, combined
with findings that aggression during childhood is one of the strongest predictors of
aggression during adulthood (Broidy et al., 2003), point to the need to encourage in
children self-reflection, the regulation of emotions and the application of problem-focused
coping strategies in response to stress.