Grant: Team Grant: Early origins of addiction in children & youth (Canada - Finland)LOI

The central tenet of this proposal is that childrens healthy development depends on healthy relationships. The focus of this grant is on peers. Childrens experiences of support and acceptance from friends and their sense of belonging to peer communities are critical to their development of relationship capacity and well being. Conversely, the destructive dynamics within bullying relationships undermine healthy development and may lead to addictive behaviours. We postulate that victimized children are engaged in unhealthy relationships and destructive peer processes. They learn to avoid members of their peer communities, lack friends, and are isolated and marginalized to avoid future victimization. As bullying persists, they are increasingly isolated and excluded from the peer community. If victimized children have friends and constructive peer processes, their friends serve to reduce the negative consequences of bullying and enhance well-being and reduce addictive behaviours. Children who bully are also marginalized from the mainstream peer group and tend to have friends who are similarly aggressive. Isolation from the mainstream peer group may limit positive social interactions with prosocial peers. This lack of constructive peer interactions may lead to unhealthy outcomes and reduced opportunities to develop relationship capacity. Victimized youth may attempt to meet their need for close peer relationships by integrating into other peer communities, such as on the internet. There is limited research on how virtual peer communities can compensate for the face-to-face peer community. Research has not been conducted on the benefits or harm of virtual relationships for youth involved in bullying. An original contribution of this research is to consider the destructive and constructive processes of virtual peers.