Children of Battered Women: Research, Programs, and Services

Abstract

Abstract As awareness of the prevalence and impact of domestic violence has grown, professional attention has shifted from the affected adults to the children who are exposed to abuse between their parents. During the 1980s, research on such children proliferated so that we now have enough information to begin to understand the impact on children of observing interparental violence. Since the early 1980s, research on the impact on children of witnessing violence or abuse between their parents has grown in both quantity and quality. More controlled studies have compared children who have witnessed abuse with matched control or contrast group children who have not witnessed abuse. In addition, controls have been introduced for several factors, including age, gender, the effects of maternal stress, and the effects of also being the victim of physical abuse by a parent. Increasingly, these factors have been conceptualized as mediating variables that can amplify or buffer the impact of abuse. The findings of these research studies are summarized in this chapter.