NCJ Number
223750
Journal
Journal of Family Violence Volume: 23 Issue: 6 Dated: August 2008 Pages: 413-427
Date Published
August 2008
Length
15 pages
Annotation
Using data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being, this study examined the relationship between women’s experiences with intimate partner violence (IPV) and the quality of their maternal parenting.
Abstract
The study found that women who had experienced IPV in the past but not currently had slightly better parenting scores than women being currently abused and women who had never experienced IPV. These findings support the hypothesis proposed by other researchers that women may try to compensate for the violence experienced in their home by offering increased nurturing and protection to their children. The women who are no longer abused by an intimate partner are free to improve their relationship with their children without interference or the stress of an abusive partner in the home. Participants were drawn from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being, a national probability study of children investigated for child maltreatment. Children were randomly selected from the families who entered the case files of child protective services between October 1999 and December 2000. The parent-child dyads examined in this study consisted of children who were not in out-of-home care; were younger than 10 years old; and were cared for by a biological mother, adoptive mother, or stepmother. The final sample consisted of 1,943 families. The data collected pertained to child health, demographic information, female caregiver alcohol abuse, caregiver depression, history of abuse and neglect, parenting practices, caregiver social support, and intimate partner violence. 6 tables and 40 references