The Effectiveness of Story Therapy on Bullying and Coercion in Parentless Children and Children with Neglectful Parenting

Introduction: The parentless and neglectful parenting children are the bitter reality of many societies and countries whose roots go back to the institution of the family and society. The prevalence of behavioral problems among parentless and neglectful parenting children is higher than other children. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of narrative therapy on bullying and coercion in parentless and neglectful parenting children. Methods: The research design was quasi-experimental with pretest-posttest and a control group. The statistical population included all The parentless and neglectful parenting children in welfare childcare centers in Shiraz in 2017-2018. Thirty children were selected by accessible sampling method and randomly and assigned to experimental and control groups of fifteen people in each group. Research tools included the Illinois Bullying scale and Olweus Bullying Questionnaire. The experimental group participated in eight sessions of sixty-minute narrative therapy sessions while the control group received no training during this period. In the end, questionnaires were administered to both groups again. Results: The results showed that the mean scores of bullying in all three components bullying, victimization, and quarrel and coercion in all three verbal, social and physical components in the experimental group were significantly lower than the control group in the post-test. In other words, Narrative therapy has reduced bullying in parentless and neglectful parenting children. Conclusions: Based on the findings of the research, it can be concluded that narrative therapy has reduced bullying in the parentless and with neglectful parenting children.