NCJ Number
132614
Journal
Journal of Marriage and the Family Volume: 51 Dated: (August 1989) Pages: 699-711
Date Published
1989
Length
13 pages
Annotation
Data on 1,395 adolescents aged 11 to 18 who were interviewed for the 1972 National Survey of Youth were used to examine the extent, the sociodemographic correlates, and the causes of assaults on parents.
Abstract
An integrated framework designed to explain parental assault was tested that combines traditional family violence variables with the leading theories of juvenile delinquency. Excluding trivial hits from the estimate of the extent of parent assault, 124 or 9.2 percent of the sample of adolescents had hit at least one of their parents in the last 3 years; 67 adolescents or 5 percent had hit their parents during the last year. Adolescents who assaulted their parents were more likely to have friends who assault parents, to approve of delinquency including violence, to believe that the probability of official sanction for parental assault is low, to be weakly attached to parents, and to be white. More traditional family violence variables such as social isolation, drug use, stress, and power differentials were largely unrelated to parent assault. Study findings suggest the utility of integrating family violence theories with theories of juvenile delinquency. 3 tables and 35 references (Author abstract modified)