Experiencing Family Violence Research Articles

Exposure to Family Violence in Young At-Risk Children: A Longitudinal Look at the Effects of Victimization and Witnessed Physical and Psychological Aggression

This study examines the contribution of specific types of family violence exposure (e.g., victim vs. witness; physical vs. psychological) to aggressive and anxious/depressed problem behaviors in young (i.e., 6-year-old) at-risk children. This multisite prospective study of 682 children from four different regions of the country asked mothers and their 6-year-old children to report on violence exposure in their families. After controlling for mother reports of child problem behaviors on the Child Behavior Checklist at Age 4, it was found that subsequent exposure to family violence predicted reported problem behaviors at Age 6. Although mothers' report of child victimization predicted subsequent problem behaviors, witnessed violence was related to these problems only when both mothers and children reported its occurrence. The results of this study suggest that even though there was a relationship between witnessed and directly experienced family violence, both had independent, noninteractive effects on subsequent behavior problems.

The Familiar Face of Genocide: Internalized Oppression among American Indians

Virtually nonexistent in traditional American Indian communities, today American Indian women and children experience family violence at rates similar to those of the dominant culture. This article explores violence within American Indian communities as an expression of internalized oppression and as an extension of EurO'American violence against American Indian nations.

The Familiar Face of Genocide: Internalized Oppression among American Indians

Virtually nonexistent in traditional American Indian communities, today American Indian women and children experience family violence at rates similar to those of the dominant culture. This article explores violence within American Indian communities as an expression of internalized oppression and as an extension of EurO'American violence against American Indian nations.

Voices from the margins Part 2: Narrative accounts of the support needs of Indigenous families experiencing violence

Part 2 focuses on the needs of informal supporters of rural Aboriginal women experiencing family violence. The strategies for strengthening support for Aboriginal families are presented. The participants identified the barriers to help seeking by Aboriginal women, the needs of Aboriginal families experiencing violence, and healing models necessary to deal positively with the past and present trauma experienced by Indigenous people in Australia.

Adolescent Peer Relationships and Mental Health Functioning in Families With Domestic Violence

Examined the impact of domestic violence, child abuse, and attachment style on adolescent mental health and relationship functioning. Data were collected on 111 adolescents, ages 14 to 16, and their mothers. Results indicate that both attachment and family violence experiences negatively impact mental health. In addition, family violence significantly predicted attachment style. Significant protective and vulnerability factors included maternal psychological functioning, maternal positive parenting, and perceived social support from friends. However, findings provided only limited support for the model of attachment as a mediator of the impact of family violence on adolescent relationships.

Children exposed to domestic violence: psychological considerations for health care practitioners.

This article reviews the psychological impact of exposure to domestic violence on child development. The purpose is to give insight to the following questions: How does the experience of family violence affect a child's perception of the world and relationships with others? What type of coping style might this same child be likely to develop? What factors help protect a child who has been exposed to violence in the home? In addition, the article discusses assessment considerations for health care practitioners and recommends areas for future research and public policy development.

Helping children who have experienced family violence: A discussion of the issues raised by the PARKAS program

This paper looks at some of the difficulties that practitioners face when developing intervention programs for children who have experienced abuse or family violence. It argues that different intervention strategies have developed in Australia, the USA and Britain for children who have been physically abused and for children who have been sexually abused or who have experienced family violence, and that these strategies reflect the different ways in which these problems were identified rather than being based on rigorous evaluative methodologies that identify what is actually effective in intervening in children's lives.

Risky business: stories from the field of rural community nurses' work in domestic violence.

This paper reports on a descriptive study into family violence in rural Victoria. Focus groups were held in a number of areas across rural Victoria with a total of 24 community nurse participants. The focus groups were audio-taped and the tapes transcribed to enable the clustering of themes. The dominant themes were: picking up cues, helping and helplessness, holding secrets and quiet resistance. Underpinning all these themes however, was the notion of 'risky business'. All nurses in the study gave examples of situations that they encountered; their ways of helping; of working around a system that is unhelpful; and the ways in which their work while skilled, thoughtful and wise, is also costly in terms of the emotional wounds they carry. Rural nurses work with considerable risk and courage as they engage in the care and support of women experiencing family violence.

Psychological risk factors in pregnant inmates. A challenge for nursing.

To explore pregnant prisoners' experiences with childhood violence and substance abuse, their parenting attitudes, and their psychological health. This study used a prospective design to describe incarcerated pregnant women's experiences with childhood violence, substance abuse, parenting attitudes, and psychological health and the relationships among these factors. Sixty-three pregnant prisoners in their third trimester were interviewed. Owing to the low literacy of this population, all questions were read to participants to maximize comprehension and reliability. Over 60% of respondents reported experiencing family violence during childhood or adolescence. Almost one-half of the women reported using drugs and alcohol during the past year and in their current pregnancy. Substance-abusing respondents were twice as likely to have been victims of physical abuse. All of the women who had been sexually abused during childhood were substance abusers; women who did not use drugs had no such history. Many women in the study had parenting and child rearing attitudes indicative of risk for poor parenting and abuse. More than 70% of the women reported depressive symptoms above the level considered indicative of clinical depression. Women reported low levels of social support; further, 50% of the women had lost an important relationship within the last year and 80% were not in a relationship with a partner at the time of their interview. The essential components of caring for pregnant prisoners should include extensive screening for substance abuse as well as history of past and current violence. Pregnant prisoners, with their many risk factors, are a group that could benefit from programs that address substance abuse and violence to decrease mental distress.

The Intergenerational Transmission of Spouse Abuse: A Meta‐Analysis

This study uses meta‐analytic procedures to examine the relationship between growing up in a violent home and subsequently becoming part of a violent marital relationship. Our meta‐analysis examines published and unpublished research studies that investigate the relationship between witnessing or experiencing family violence in childhood and receiving or perpetrating violence in an adult heterosexual cohabiting or marital relationship. The findings of this meta‐analysis suggest there is a weak‐to‐moderate relationship between growing up in an abusive family and becoming involved in a violent marital relationship. Differential effects of gender and sample type are also discussed.

Mothers and Children Together

Summary Treatment groups for both mothers and children together who have experienced mother assault is a unique therapeutic milieu which has been underutilized in the treatment field. This article presents a 10-week feminist-informed family systems group model as part of a treatment approach for children exposed to family violence and can be used with families of children from pre-school to adolescence. This model provides a context in which the experience of family violence can be debriefed, and issues related to trauma, safety, secrecy, and post-abuse family restructuring can be addressed by family members together. In addition, play and art therapy based interventions are presented and are tailored for the beginning, middle, and end of the group process.

Mental Health Professionals' Perceptions of Women's Experiences of Family Violence

This study explored perceptions of 92 mental health professionals regarding violent families. They were asked to answer the questions on the Family Environment Scale as they thought women who lived in homes where they and their children were physically and/or psychologically abused would respond. Their scores were compared to those of 28 mothers in battered women's shelters. They differed significantly in their perceptions of violent family dynamics with regard to levels of cohesion, expressiveness, independence, intellectual-cultural orientation, active-recreational emphasis, and moral-religious emphasis. They believed the women to have lower levels on these constructs than the women actually reported. Implications suggest that mental health professionals could be more aware of the dynamics of violent families in order to efficiently uncover the violence during therapy sessions and provide appropriate services.

Family Violence in the Preschool and Primary Yearsand Its Effect on Children's Literacy Acquisition

Fourteen out of every 100 children between the ages of 3 and 17 experience family violence (Strauss & Kantor; 1988). The United States has undergone an extraordinary increase in community violence in the past two decades (Richter & Martinez, 1993). Based on a variety of studies in Chicago, Boston, New Orleans, and Los Angeles, Garbarino, Durow, Kostelyn, and Prado (1992) estimate thousands of children witness family and community violence each yeas At least 3.3 million annually witness parental abuse (Jaffe, Wove, & Wilson, 1990). It is difficult to assess the relationship between exposure to violence and school achievement because of the many interrelated variables. However; it is clear that "child behaviors that lead to academic frustration and school failure accompany histories of family violence" (Craig, 1992, p. 67). A child's success or failure in learning to read usually determines future academic success because reading is fundamental to all subject areas. Therefore, it is imperative that educators of young children understand the child behaviors resulting from violence exposure and develop appropriate responses to meet the needs of these millions of children arriving daily in our classrooms.

Women's aggression in heterosexual conflicts

Using a longitudinal design, prior experience with violence as a victim and opportunity to aggress were examined as predictors of college women's verbal and physical aggression toward romantic partners. Five additional categories of predictors identified in previous research (experienced and witnessed parental aggression during childhood, attitudes accepting of aggression, aggressive/impulsive personality attributes, psychopathology, and prior use of aggression) were also examined. Blockwise hierarchical regression analyses were performed to reveal the best predictors of verbal and physical aggression during the first year of college. Significant predictors of verbal aggression were prior use of verbal aggression in heterosexual conflicts during adolescence, witnessed parental aggression, level of adolescent sexual victimization, being a target of rational conflict strategies during adolescence, and use of physical aggression in romantic adolescent relationships, as well as self-reported verbal aggression as an index of personality, weak emotional ties, number of sexual partners, and approval of sexual intimacy in many types of relationships. Significant predictors of physical aggression were prior use of physical aggression during adolescence, witnessing and experiencing parental aggression, being a victim of physical aggression in adolescent romantic relationships, weak emotional ties, low levels of alcohol/drug use, and opportunity to aggress. A developmental model of aggression in which childhood experiences with family violence contribute to the likelihood of subsequent involvement in relationship violence seems appropriate. Past experience with aggression may be particularly important for women. Cultural expectations about women's roles do not provide the social support for female aggression that is provided for male aggression. Adolescent sexual victimizations and general involvement in conflictual relationships (as target and perpetrator) predicted subsequent verbal aggression, whereas experiencing family violence and sustaining physical aggression in romantic relationships predicted subsequent physical aggression. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.