Does child maltreatment occur more often in adoptive and stepfamilies than in biological families? Data were collected from all 17 Dutch child protective services (CPS) agencies on 13,538 cases of certified child maltreatment in 2005. Family composition of the maltreated children was compared to a large national representative sample of the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (NKPS). Larger families, one-parent families, and families with a stepparent showed elevated risks for child maltreatment. Adoptive families, however, showed significantly less child maltreatment than expected. The findings are discussed in the context of parental investment theory that seems to be applicable to stepparents but not to adoptive parents.
Anderson, K.G., Kaplan, H., & Lancaster, J. ( 1999). Paternal care by genetic fathers and stepfathers I: Reports from Albuquerque men. Evolution and Human Behavior, 20, 405-431.
2.
Baeten, P. ( 2002). Child abuse reporting code. Guidelines for professionals . Utrecht: NIZW.
3.
Barnett, D. ( 2007). Who should be considered at risk for maltreating their children? Child Maltreatment, 12, 383-384.
4.
Brewster, A.L., Nelson, J.P., Hymel, K.P., Colby, D.R., Lucas, D.R., McCanne, T.R., et al. (1998). Victim, perpetrator, family, and incident characteristics of 32 infant maltreatment death in the United States Air Force . Child Abuse and Neglect, 22, 91-101.
5.
Daly, M., & Wilson, M.I. ( 1994a). Some differential attributes of lethal assaults on small children by stepfathers versus genetic fathers. Ethology and Sociobiology, 15, 207-217.
6.
Daly, M., & Wilson, M.I. ( 1994b). Stepparenthood and the evolved psychology of discriminative parental solicitude. In S. Parmigiano & F. S. Vom Saal (Eds.), Infanticide and parental care (pp. 121-136). Chur: Academic Publishers.
7.
Euser, E.M., van IJzendoorn, M.H., Prinzie, P., & Bakermans-Kranenburg, M.J. (in preparation) The prevalence of child maltreatment in the Netherlands. Manuscript in preparation.
8.
Friedman, S.H., Horwitz, S., & Resnick, P.J. ( 2005). Child murder by mothers: A critical analysis of the current state of knowledge and a research agenda. American Journal of Psychiatry, 62, 1578-1587.
9.
Gelles, R.J. ( 1989). Child abuse and violence in single-families: parent absence and economic deprivation. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry , 59, 492-501.
10.
Gelles, R.J., & Harrop, J.W. ( 1991). The risk of abusive violence among children with nongenetic caretakers. Family Relations, 40, 78-83.
11.
Gunnar, M.R., Bruce, J., & Grotevant, H.D. (2000). International adoption of institutionally reared children: Research and policy. Development and Psychopathology, 12, 677-693.
12.
Gunnar, M., & Pollak, S.D. ( 2007). Supporting parents so that they can support their internationally adopted children: The larger challenge lurking behind the fatality statistics . Child Maltreatment, 12, 381-382.
13.
Higgins, D.J. ( 2004). The importance of degree versus type of maltreatment: A cluster analysis of child abuse types. Journal of Psychology , 138, 303-324.
14.
Hrdy, S. ( 1999). Mother nature: A history of mothers, infants and natural selection. New York: Pantheon.
15.
Juffer, F., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M.J., & van IJzendoorn, M.H. (2008). Supporting adoptive families with video-feedback intervention. In F. Juffer, M. J. Bakermans-Kranenburg & M. H. van IJzendoorn (Eds.), Promoting positive parenting: An attachment-based intervention (pp. 139-153). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum.
16.
Kroonenberg, P.M. ( 1998). Multinom for Windows (Version 2.0a) [Computer software] . The Netherlands: Leiden University . Retrieved from http://www.fsw.leidenuniv.nl/kroonenb/index.html
17.
Larrivee, M.C., Tourigny, M., & Bouchard, C. ( 2007). Child physical abuse with and without other forms of maltreatment: Dysfunctionality versus dysnormality. Child Maltreatment, 12, 303-313.
18.
Lucas, D.R., Wezner, K.C., Milner, J.S., McCanne, T.R., Nell Harris, I., Monroe-Posey, C., et al. (2002). Victim, perpetrator, family, and incident characteristics of infant and child homicide in the United States Air Force . Child Abuse and Neglect, 26, 167-186.
19.
Miller, L.C., Chan, W., Reece, R.A., Tirella, L., & Pertman, A. ( 2007). Child abuse fatalities among internationally adopted children. Child Maltreatment, 12, 378-379.
20.
Miller, L.C., Chan, W., Tirella, L., Reece, R.A., & Pertman, A. ( 2007). Family and research context of internationally adopted abuse fatalities. Child Maltreatment, 12, 385-386.
21.
Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (NKPS). (2006). Retrieved September, 2006, from http://www.nkps.nl
22.
Ney, P.G., Fung, T., & Wickett, A.R. ( 1994). The worst combinations of child abuse and neglect. Child Abuse and Neglect, 18, 705-714.
23.
Overpeck, M.D., Brenner, R.A., Trumble, A.C., Trifiletti, A.B., & Berendes, H.W. (1998). Risk factors for infant homicide in the United States. The New England Journal of Medicine, 339, 1211-1216.
24.
Rougé-Maillart, C., Jousset, N., Gaudin, A., Bouju, B., & Penneau, N. ( 2005). Women who kill their children. The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, 26, 320-326.
25.
Schoonjans, F. ( 2008). MedCalc. Statistics for biomedical research. Version 10. Mariakerke, Belgium. Retrieved September 16, 2008 from http://www.medcalc.be
26.
Sedlak, A.J., & Broadhurst, D.D. (1996). The third National Incidence Study of child abuse and neglect (NIS-3). Final report. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
27.
Sprangers, A., De Jong, J., & Van Zee, M. (2006). Halve eeuw adopties in Nederland [Half a century of adoption in the Netherlands]. Demos, Bulletin over Bevolking en Samenleving, 22, 97-101.
28.
Temrin, H., Buchmayer, S., & Enquist, M. ( 2000). Step-parents and infanticide: New data contradict evolutionary predictions. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 267, 943-945.
29.
Trivers, R.L. ( 1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. In B. Campbell (Ed.), Sexual selection and the descent of man (pp. 1871-1971). Chicago: Aldine .
30.
Vandenbroucke, J.P., & Hofman, A. ( 1997). Grondslagen der epidemiologie [The principles of epidemiology] . Utrecht: Bunge.
31.
van IJzendoorn, M.H., & Juffer, F. ( 2006). The Emanuel Miller Memorial Lecture: Adoption as intervention. Meta-analytic evidence for massive catch-up and plasticity in physical, socio-emotional and cognitive development. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47, 1228-1245.
32.
van IJzendoorn, M.H., Prinzie, P., Euser, E.M., Groeneveld, M.G., Brilleslijper-Kater, S.N., Van Noort - van der Linden, A.M. et al. (2007). Kindermishandeling in Nederland anno 2005: de Nationale Prevalentie studie Mishandeling van kinderen en jeugdigen (NPM-2005). [Child maltreatment in the Netherlands in 2005: Netherlands’ Prevalence study of Maltreatment of youth (NPM-2005). Leiden: Casimir Publishers.
33.
Van Zeijl, J., Mesman, J., Stolk, M.N., Alink, L.R.A., van IJzendoorn, M.H., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M.J., et al. (2006). Terrible ones? Assessment of externalizing behaviors in infancy with the Child Behavior Checklist. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47, 801-810.
