J Fam Viol (2013) 28:201–212 DOI 10.1007/s10896-012-9477-6
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The Relation Between Intimate Partner Violence, Parenting Stress, and Child Behavior Problems Lynette M. Renner & Shamra Boel-Studt
Published online: 3 October 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012
Abstract Parenting characteristics can have a significant influence on how children are affected by family violence. The purpose of this study was to explore the role women’s parenting stress plays in the relationship between exposure to physical and psychological intimate partner violence (IPV) and children’s externalizing and internalizing behavior problems. Data for this study were taken from three waves of the Illinois Families Study. The final sample included 1,653 children from 805 families. Structural equation modeling analyses were conducted across two developmental stages in order to better understand the unique relationships based on child development. For children ages 6–12 years, parenting stress mediated the relationship between exposure to psychological IPV and internalizing behaviors. No direct or indirect pathways between exposure to IPV and children’s behavior problems were found among adolescents ages 13–17. Implications for social service interventions with children and families exposed to violence are included. Keywords Physical victimization . Psychological victimization . Maternal stress . Externalizing behavior . Internalizing behavior . Family violence This research was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01 HD39148 and K01 HD41703-01) and the Silberman Fund Faculty Grant Program. Administrative data linkages were developed by the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago and survey data were collected by the Metro Chicago Information Center (MCIC). L. M. Renner (*) : S. Boel-Studt School of Social Work, University of Iowa, 308 North Hall, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA e-mail:
[email protected]
Despite increasing awareness over several decades, intimate partner violence (IPV) continues to be a significant societal problem with devastating consequences for women and children (El-Mouelhy 2004; Wood 2005). Compared to children from families reporting no IPV, children exposed to IPV have been found to display increased levels of externalizing and internalizing behavior problems, greater physical health problems, and poorer levels of cognitive and social skills (see reviews by Howell 2011; Mohr et al. 2000; Wolfe et al. 2003). Some researchers have found that IPV negatively affects women’s physical and mental health (Bonomi et al. 2009; Lawrence et al. 2009); yet, research on the effects of IPV on maternal well-being and parenting has produced mixed results (Huth-Bocks and Hughes 2008; Owen et al. 2009). Although some relationships between parenting abilities and child outcomes have been demonstrated, additional research is needed to shed further light on the effect of IPV on maternal well-being and the extent to which maternal well-being accounts for the relationship between exposure to IPV and children’s behavioral and emotional outcomes. Research on the effects of IPV on women’s well-being has found that different types of victimization may have differential impacts. For example, some researchers have found that the experience of psychological IPV is associated with poorer emotional adjustment among women than experiences of physical abuse (Arias and Pape 1999; Dutton et al. 1999; Lawrence et al. 2009). Studies focused on how different types of IPVaffect maternal well-being in relation to child outcomes are lacking in the current literature. Additionally, some research has shown that the effects of exposure to IPV among children may differ depending on the child’s developmental stage (Margolin and Gordis 2000). It is well understood that relationships between children and their parents and parenting roles change as children mature. In order to more precisely
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understand the role maternal well-being plays in the relation between exposure to IPV and child outcomes, research is needed that simultaneously takes into account the type of IPV exposure and children’s developmental stage. The purpose of this study was to examine the occurrence of physical and psychological IPVand the relationship between IPV and women’s parenting and behavior problems among schoolage children and adolescents. Structural equation modeling was used to model the direct and indirect effects of exposure to psychological and physical IPV victimization, self-reported maternal stress, and children’s internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. Specifically, the effect of maternal stress on the relation between IPV and child outcomes was examined. The study sample included women and children who were current or former welfare recipients and who represent a population known to be at increased risk for IPV and poor outcomes. By including psychological and physical IPV, this study offered information regarding the associations between psychological IPV and child behavior problems, which have remained largely absent from current research.
Literature Review Prevalence of IPV Studies have reported that physical IPV, such as hitting, pushing, or shoving occurs in approximately 29–52 % of coupled relationships in the U.S. population (Krebs et al. 2011; Lawrence and Bradbury 2001, 2007). A recent national population-based sample of 2,629 women found that 31.8 % reported experiencing physical victimization by an intimate partner and 55.1 % reported experiencing psychological victimization by an intimate partner (Krebs et al. 2011). Consistent with prior research demonstrating that psychological and/or verbal partner aggression is a precursor to physical partner aggression or is likely to occur simultaneously (Henning and Klesges 2003; O’Leary et al. 1994), this study found that women who reported experiencing physical IPV were 20 times more likely to report experiencing psychological IPV (Krebs et al. 2011). Rates of IPV have been found to be especially high among lower socio-economic groups (Benson and Fox 2004; Cunradi et al. 2002) and women receiving welfare (Allard et al. 1997; Lloyd and Taluc 1999). Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households and the 1990 U.S. Census, Benson and Fox (2004) found that compared to women living in more advantaged neighborhoods, those residing in disadvantaged neighborhoods experience IPV over twice as often. Low-income women have also been found to be at increased risk for recurrent IPV (Cattaneo and Goodman 2005; Sonis and Langer 2008).
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IPV is not limited to adults, as children are affected by the adult relationships in the home. An estimated 15.5 million children in the U.S. are exposed to IPV in their homes annually (McDonald et al. 2006). Fusco and Fantuzzo (2009) found that among children who were present during an incident of IPV, around 95 % had direct sensory exposure. However, children may be negatively affected by IPV even if they do not witness the violence firsthand. Holden’s (2003) taxonomy captures this understanding of exposure and extends the concept beyond witnessing by citing 10 ways that children can be exposed to IPV. Influence of IPV on Children’s Behavior Problems Prior research focused on children’s exposure to IPV has yielded results indicating that school-aged children (Adamson and Thompson 1998; Holden and Ritchie 1991; Johnson et al. 2002; McCloskey and Stuewig 2001; Spaccarelli et al. 1994) and adolescents (Mahoney et al. 2003; Meltzer et al. 2009; O’Keefe 1996) exposed to IPV have been found to display higher levels of externalizing and internalizing behaviors compared to children who were not exposed. Given the differences in cognitive, behavioral, and emotion-processing capacities among school-aged children and adolescents, coupled with the distinctive social and maturational challenges unique to each developmental stage, divergence in responses to exposure to IPV might be expected (Margolin and Gordis 2000). One megaanalysis of pooled raw data from 15 studies found that age significantly moderated externalizing, but not internalizing, behavior problems (Sternberg et al. 2006). Meltzer et al. (2009) found a similar association with externalizing, with younger children reporting higher levels of behavior problems compared to older children. Using a fixed effects regression analysis to control for selection bias, Emery (2011) found the effects of exposure to IPV attenuated with age for both internalizing and externalizing behaviors among a sample of 1,816 children ages 3–15. Not all studies have supported heterogeneity in effects by age. For example, two meta-analyses found that age did not significantly moderate the effects of IPV (Evans et al. 2008; Kitzmann et al. 2003) while a third concluded that due to methodological differences across studies, conclusions concerning the moderating effect of age on exposure to IPV and behavioral outcomes could not be determined (Wolfe et al. 2003). The need for research to further delineate how youth respond to IPV exposure at different times in the developmental life course and studies that provide greater insight regarding adolescent outcomes, still underrepresented in the research literature, has been noted (McCloskey 2011; Tajima et al. 2011). Studies focused on gender as a moderator for exposure to IPV and child behavior problems have produced mixed
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results (Cyr et al. 2006; Evans et al. 2008; Meltzer et al. 2009; Kitzmann et al. 2003). Still other studies found that while some children experience adjustment problems in response to IPV, others go on to become relatively welladjusted (see Howell 2011 for review). Children’s overall adjustment is determined by the balance of multiple risk and protective factors that can include familial and other social/ structural factors which can increase or decrease in relative influence at different developmental stages. In more recent years, research has begun to more closely examine the role of parenting factors in the relation between child outcomes and exposure to IPV. Influence of IPV on Parenting Patterns of hostile, hostile-detached, and conflict-laden marital communication have been found to be associated with negative child adjustment (Katz and Woodin 2002); however, women raising children in the context of an abusive partnered relationship may experience additional difficulties. The amount of parenting stress experienced by women in violent partner relationships has been found to be higher than that of women in nonviolent relationships (Holden and Ritchie 1991; Kalil et al. 2003; Levendosky and Graham-Bermann 1998); yet studies have found mixed evidence surrounding a woman’s parenting abilities and child-rearing practices in the context of relationship violence. Some researchers have found evidence that involvement in abusive and/or unsatisfying relationships negatively affects mother-child relationships (Levendosky and Graham-Bermann 2000; Owen et al. 2009). However, Sullivan et al. (2000) found that neither experiences of physical nor experiences of emotional abuse directly affected mother’s level of parenting stress or use of discipline with their children. Increasingly, researchers have demonstrated a more complex relationship between the effects of IPV and parenting on children’s adjustment. In a cluster analysis of 219 children ages 6–12 exposed to IPV, Graham-Bermann et al. (2009) found that maternal warmth, limit setting abilities, and better maternal mental health distinguished resilient children from those with more depressive symptomology and behavior problems. Lieberman et al. (2005) found that exposure to marital violence and maternal life stress was associated with children’s behavior problems and that the effect of maternal life stress was mediated by maternal psychopathology. Renner (2009) found that women who experienced psychological IPV reported higher mean levels of parenting stress compared to those who reported no psychological IPV, and mothers’ depressive symptoms were found to partially mediate the relation between psychological IPV and later parenting stress. In a cross-sectional study of 190 mother-child dyads, Huth-Bocks and Hughes (2008)
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tested the hypothesis that parenting behavior mediated the relation between parenting stress and children’s behavioral and emotional adjustment. They found that while there was a direct association between parenting stress and children’s adjustment problems, the mediational hypothesis was not supported. Using a sample of 129 low income women and children, Owen et al. (2009) found that maternal distress and child reports of family cohesion and relatedness mediated the relation between exposure to physical and nonphysical IPV and child internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. In summary, existing research findings have demonstrated that the effect of exposure to IPV may vary depending on the child’s developmental stage. Some researchers have concluded that IPV has a detrimental effect on maternal functioning, and othershave indicated this plays an important role in children’s adjustment (Graham-Bermann et al. 2009; Lieberman et al. 2005). The few studies that have examined the mediational relationship of parental stress on IPV exposure and child adjustment have produced mixed results and were based on small samples and cross-sectional designs. Other studies have found that maternal psychopathology and various parenting factors also play important roles in the level of women’s parenting stress and child outcomes. Thus, additional research is needed to examine the role of parenting stress in relation to exposure to IPV and children’s behavioral outcomes.
The Current Study The aims of our study were threefold. First, we sought to identify the prevalence of exposure to physical and psychological IPV among children in a low-income population. Next, we examined whether exposure to physical and/or psychological IPV directly affected later child behavior problems and whether physical and/or psychological IPV affected women’s subsequent parenting stress. Finally, we examined whether parenting stress mediated the relationship between IPV and child behavior problems. The conceptual framework for this study was drawn from Belsky’s (1984) process model of parenting which has been used in prior research to examine parenting abilities of women who experience IPV (see Levendosky and Graham-Bermann 2001; Renner 2009). The model proposes that parental functioning is influenced directly and indirectly by contextual sources of support and stress. Sources of support and stress indirectly influence parenting by first affecting psychological functioning, and then parenting behavior. Belsky (1984) proposed that psychological functioning was a stronger influence on parenting than contextual supports or even child characteristics. Related to this, the spillover hypothesis proposes that women’s emotions and
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affect generated from adult interpersonal relationships will transfer to and influence other relationships (Engfer 1988). In the context of IPV, this translates into the relationship between the mother and child, thus impacting children’s adjustment. Existing research supports the tenets of the spillover hypothesis (Gerard et al. 2006; Sturge-Apple et al. 2006).
Method
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children) who participated in all three waves of data collection were included in the final sample. Our focus on maternal functioning also required us to only include female caregivers. The final sample consisted of 1,653 children from 805 families. Children in the final sample represented two developmental groups based on age: elementary school children, ages 6–12 (n01,142) and adolescents, ages 13–17 (n0511). The descriptive statistics for the key study variables and demographic characteristics of the sample are presented in Table 1.
Data Sources and Sample Measures This study was based on survey data from the Illinois Families Study (IFS). The IFS is a five-year panel study consisting of annual interviews with 1998 Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) grantees residing in nine Illinois counties and representing 75 % of the Illinois TANF caseload. Wave 1 survey respondents were randomly selected from the Illinois welfare caseload from two strata (Cook County and Downstate counties) and included a base sample of 1,899. In-person interviews for Wave 1 of the IFS were conducted from 1999 to 2000. Wave 2 and Wave 3 annual follow-up interviews were conducted in 2001 and 2002, respectively. The response rate for the first wave of data collection was 72 % (N01,363 respondents) and the retention rates for the second and third waves were 87 % (N0 1,183) and 79 % (N01,072), respectively. Over 97 % of the Wave 1 IFS sample was female and included reports on 3,414 children. Analytic weights were used to adjust for sampling stratification and survey non-response. The IFS was approved by the Northwestern University Institutional Review Board and informed consent for participating in the annual IFS interviews was obtained from sample members prior to their initial survey interview. Administrative data through the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services regarding Child Protective Services (CPS) allegations of child maltreatment were also included in the analysis. One limitation of previous studies assessing the effects of IPV on child outcomes has been the lack of information regarding the co-occurrence of child maltreatment. During the Wave 1 interviews, respondents were asked whether they allowed access to this data for research purposes (92.4 % of the Wave 1 sample provided consent). The use of CPS allegations as a control variable in the study required the exclusion of any children from a family that did not provide administrative consent (n035). Difference of means tests were conducted to examine any significant differences between women who provided administrative consent for use of CPS data versus nonconsenters on key study variables and no significant differences were found. The design of the study required information from multiple waves, therefore, only survey respondents (and
The focus of the proposed study was on the relationship between exposure to IPV, parenting stress, and child behavior problems. Additional variables were measured and included in the analyses as control variables. Child Behavior Problems The data on the two outcome variables were gathered using the Parent Form for Problem Behaviors from the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS), which has demonstrated good content, construct, and criterion validity (Gresham and Elliot 1990). As part of the annual IFS interview, caregivers were asked questions regarding each of their children’s behavior problems. Six items were used to assess externalizing behaviors and included how often each child had temper tantrums, fought with others, and threatened or bullied others. Six items were used to measure internalizing behavior problems and included how often a child showed anxiety about being with a group of children, acted sad or depressed, and appeared lonely. Each item assessing behaviors was measured using a 3-point response system: 0 0 never, 1 0 sometimes, 2 0 often. Factor loadings (not shown) for externalizing and internalizing behavior latent variables were significant at the p
