Child Maltreatment and High Risk Families by Julie Taylor & Anne Lazenbatt

Author:Julie Taylor & Anne Lazenbatt [Taylor, Julie & Lazenbatt, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, Family & Relationships, Child Rearing, Social Services & Welfare, Political Science, Parenting
ISBN: 9781780465197
Google: SV1wDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 31390347
Publisher: Dunedin Academic Press
Published: 2014-12-01T07:02:15+00:00

Risk factors and ‘abusive’ families

Parental low self-esteem, depression, psychopathology, history of child abuse and social isolation, among other factors, are at least somewhat steadily positively related to child maltreatment. Studies are also consistent in finding abusive parents: to be more psychophysiologically reactive to aversive child stimuli; to have unrealistic expectations of the child (either too high or too low); to use more coercive discipline than inductive reasoning; to have less interaction with the child; to be more negative than positive in interactions with the child; and to see the child as a problem child or as acting intentionally to annoy (Milner and Chilamkurti, 1991; Milner and Dopke, 1997). Social isolation also appears important (Hazler and Denham, 2002), while studies on parent substance abuse and child abuse suggest a positive relationship between the two, particularly in the case of alcohol abuse (Milner and Chilamkurti, 1991). None of the empirical literature reviews to date has cited demographic factors as particularly important in relation to child physical abuse, but important evidence is beginning to emerge from longitudinal studies.

Risk factors for child abuse (Black et al., 2001)

Perpetrators:

•Few studies have investigated the fathers’ characteristics.

•Only the association with parents’ age had a medium-effect size.

•Parent gender is not associated with child abuse.

•Inter-generational transmission of abuse and a history of poor familial support were moderately associated with child physical abuse. Parents who were abused as children or corporally punished as teens were more likely to employ physical abuse, and abusive mothers also reported less family social support as children.

•Most personality variables assessed were not associated with child abuse.

•Abusive mothers were likely to make internal and stable attributions about their children’s negative behaviours and external and unstable attributions about their children’s positive behaviours; they were also less likely to blame themselves for failed interactions with their children. They also had more negative and higher than normal expectations of their children, as well as less understanding of appropriate developmental norms.

•Abusive mothers were more likely to use harsh discipline strategies and verbal aggression and less likely to use positive strategies than controls.

Victims:

•child gender is not a risk factor;

•attention deficits;

•internalising and externalising behaviours;

•socialised aggression.

Family:

•adolescents perceived their families as having higher levels of family stress and as being less adaptive and less cohesive;

•partner aggression;

•children from abusive families were observed emitting more negative commands towards fathers, negative physical behaviours towards family members, and possibly more negative behaviours towards their mothers.

Community:

•Drake and Pandey (1996) found that communities with greater poverty and a lower percentage of two-parent families had significantly higher rates of child abuse.

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