Intergenerational Continuity of Child Abuse Among Adolescent Mothers

Abstract

Among the negative sequelae of child maltreatment is increased risk for continuity of maltreatment into subsequent generations. Despite acknowledgment in the literature that the pathways toward breaking the cycle of maltreatment are likely the result of dynamic interactions of risk and protective factors across multiple ecological levels, few studies have followed high-risk samples of maltreated and nonmaltreated parents over time to evaluate such processes. In the current investigation, exposure to community violence and authoritarian parenting attitudes were evaluated as predictors of the intergenerational continuity of abuse, and the moderating effect of African American race was examined. The sample included 70 mothers and their 18-year-old children, who have been followed longitudinally since the third trimester of the adolescent mothers’ pregnancy. Results revealed that among mothers with a child abuse history, higher exposure to community violence and lower authoritarian parenting attitudes were associated with increased risk for intergenerational continuity of abuse. The relation of authoritarian parenting attitudes to intergenerational continuity was moderated by race; the protective effects of authoritarian parenting were limited to the African American families only. The salience of multiple ecological levels in interrupting the intergenerational continuity of child abuse is discussed, and implications for preventive programs are highlighted.

Keywords

child abuse maltreatment parenting community violence ecological models teen parenting

Among the negative sequelae of child maltreatment is the increased risk of transmitting maltreatment to the next generation (Dixon, Browne, & Hamilton-Giachritsis, 2005; Egeland, Jacobvitz, & Sroufe, 1988; Kaufman & Zigler, 1987). A large body of literature suggests that victims of childhood maltreatment are more likely to maltreat their own children than are parents without a maltreatment history. Despite acknowledgment in the literature that the pathways toward interrupting the continuity of maltreatment are likely the result of dynamic interactions of risk and protective factors across multiple ecological levels (Cicchetti & Lynch, 1993; Cicchetti & Valentino, 2006), few studies have followed high-risk samples of maltreated and nonmaltreated parents over time to evaluate such processes.

The purpose of the current study was to examine the intergenerational continuity of maltreatment among a sample of adolescent mothers who were tracked longitudinally from their pregnancies until their children were 18 years of age. Of the adolescent mothers with a maltreatment history, we sought to identify protective factors at multiple ecological levels that would differentiate families who broke the cycle of maltreatment from those whose children became maltreated by age 18. The current investigation focused on exposure to violence at the exosystem level and parenting styles at the microsystem level as predictors and examined how different racial contexts (African American vs. Caucasian American) moderated the effects of these potential protective factors. Informed by research that demonstrates how the negative sequelae of authoritarian and/or no-nonsense parenting styles may be limited to Caucasian American families (e.g., Deater-Deckard, Bates, Dodge, & Pettit, 1996; Lansford, Deater-Deckard, Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 2004), we addressed whether authoritarian parenting among African American families may mitigate against the intergenerational continuity of child abuse.

Child Maltreatment

Child maltreatment is a serious threat to public health. In 2009, more than 3.6 million children were subject to child protective services investigations. Approximately 25% of those cases were substantiated, leading to a child victimization rate of 10 per 1,000 children in the U.S. population. Approximately 80% of these children were maltreated by a parent, which underscores the pivotal role parents play in risk for child abuse and neglect (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth and Families [U.S. DHHS], 2010).

Child maltreatment confers significant risk for children in multiple developmental domains (Cicchetti & Valentino, 2006). Estimates indicate that up to 50% of children investigated by CPS (not just cases that were substantiated) exhibit clinical levels of mental health symptoms (Burns et al., 2004), and 36–45% of these children display significant behavior problems. Moreover, children involved with the child welfare system are up to three times more likely to have low levels of academic achievement than children who are not involved with the welfare system (U.S. DHHS, 2010). Clearly, child maltreatment is a significant threat to healthy child development.

The maladaptive consequences of child maltreatment persist throughout the lifespan. For example, research on the associations between patient reports of adverse childhood experiences (i.e., child maltreatment) and adult mental and physical health has attributed 50–78% of adult depression, suicide attempts, and drug or alcohol use to adverse childhood experiences including child abuse and neglect (Anda et al., 2006). As such, there is a need for preventive interventions for maltreatment that are theoretically and empirically driven by research on risk and protective factors. These services may be especially important for vulnerable populations such as teenage mothers living in violent neighborhoods.

The Intergenerational Continuity of Abuse

The occurrence of child maltreatment is multiply determined by risk and protective factors transacting at multiple levels of analysis (Cicchetti & Lynch, 1993; Cicchetti & Valentino, 2006). Theoretical (Belsky, 1993; Egeland, Bosquet, & Chung, 2002) and empirical work (Dixon et al., 2005; Kaufman & Zigler, 1987; Pears & Capaldi, 2001) has indicated that parental history of maltreatment is one of the most salient risk factors for subsequent child maltreatment. Documented rates of intergenerational continuity vary widely, however, and research demonstrates that despite elevated risk for maltreatment among children of parents who were childhood victims of abuse, the majority of parents with abuse histories do not perpetuate abuse in the next generation (Browne & Herbert, 1997; Dixon, Hamilton-Giachritsis, & Browne, 2005; Pears & Capaldi, 2001). For example, in one prospective study that followed infants from birth to age 5, 7.4% of parents with an abuse history maltreated their own children (Browne & Herbert, 1997). Another prospective study reported the proportion of parents with a history of maltreatment whose children were subsequently referred to authorities for abuse and/or neglect as 6.7% by the time children were 13 months of age versus 0.4% of parents without a history of maltreatment (Dixon et al., 2005). In contrast, a prospective study of high-risk families with boys reported that, by age 21, 23% of the sons of physically abused parents reported that their parent/parents had abused them versus 10% of the sons of parents without a history of abuse (Pears & Capaldi, 2001).

Of note is the distinction between intergenerational continuity of abuse and the intergenerational transmission of abuse; continuity refers to situations where abused parents have an abused child in the household without distinguishing whether the perpetrator is the parent or not, whereas transmission refers to a subset of these families in which parents who were victims of childhood abuse can be identified as subsequent perpetrators of abuse toward their own children (Berlin, Appleyard, & Dodge, 2011). The focus of this investigation is intergenerational continuity of childhood abuse. Among this high-risk group of individuals with childhood abuse histories, it is important to identify mechanisms that confer protection from maltreatment continuity. Such research will be invaluable in developing preventive interventions for this especially vulnerable group of parents and their children.

Exposure to Community Violence

Exposure to community violence is an element of the exosystem that adversely affects family functioning and stress (Overstreet & Braun, 2000), and the experience of community violence has been specifically associated with child maltreatment (Cicchetti & Lynch, 1993; Coulton, Crampton, Irwin, Spilsbury, & Korbin, 2007; Lynch & Cicchetti, 1998; Martinez & Richters, 1993; Richters & Martinez, 1993). For example, Lynch and Cicchetti (1998) examined the mutual relationships among community violence, child maltreatment, and children’s functioning over a 1-year period. Rates of child maltreatment, particularly physical abuse, were positively related to levels of child-reported violence in the community. Additional research suggests that in communities exposed to high levels of violence, parents often do not utilize available preventive services or interventions, and social isolation is commonly associated with maltreatment (Garbarino, 1977; Hunter & Kilstrom, 1979). Despite the association between community violence exposure and child abuse, research on the intergenerational continuity of child abuse has not yet considered the role of community violence in this process.

Parenting Styles

Since Baumrind’s (1972) identification of distinct parenting styles, research has documented the benefits of an authoritative parenting style as well as the risks associated with an authoritarian style in relation to child development (Baumrind, 1972, 1978; Gershoff, 2002). Authoritarian parenting is characterized by demandingness, high expectations for conformity and compliance with parental authority, and is often associated with families that use physical punishment. Harsh physical punishment is associated with significant maladaptive outcomes including aggression, violence, and delinquency in children (see Gershoff, 2002, for review). Because the distinction between physical punishment and physical abuse is not clear, the use of physical punishment has been identified as an obvious predictor of child abuse; less attention has been paid, however, to the role of authoritarian parenting attitudes in relation to risk for child abuse or intergenerational continuity of abuse.

Consistent with an ecological-transactional perspective, variables operating at all ecological levels may influence each other in relation to child developmental outcomes (Cicchetti & Lynch, 1995; Cicchetti & Valentino, 2006). For example, cultural, racial or ethnic group membership has been conceptualized as macrosystem-level factor that significantly influences social practices and relationships observed within microsystems, mesosystems, and exosystems (Cicchetti & Valentino, 2006; Spencer et al., 2006). With regard to parenting, an emerging literature suggests that the practice of authoritarian parenting, and its association with child outcomes, varies by racial context. For example, African American parents adopt authoritarian and restrictive parenting styles more frequently than do Caucasian American parents (Furstenberg, Brooks-Gunn, & Chase-Lansdale, 1989). Although the use of authoritarian punishment styles may suggest risk for maltreatment among Caucasian American families, researchers have found that the adoption and exercise of authoritarian parenting styles in African American families were not associated with the adverse behavioral outcomes commonly linked with authoritarian parenting in Caucasian American families, such as hostility and resistance (Baumrind, 1972; Taylor & Roberts, 1995) or externalizing behavior problems (Deater-Deckard et al., 1996). In contrast, evidence has accumulated that authoritarian parenting may act protectively among African American families (Gunnoe & Mariner, 1997; Lansford et al., 2004), leading to less aggressive behavior and more positive developmental outcomes among African American children.

Research has yet to explore how authoritarian parenting may be related to the intergenerational continuity of child abuse, and whether this relation is moderated by race. Given that authoritarian parenting has been associated with decreased aggressive behavior and more positive developmental outcomes among African American children, an authoritarian parenting style may similarly be associated with positive parenting behavior. For example, an authoritarian parenting style may increase parental monitoring, which has been associated with positive child developmental outcomes among African American families (e.g., Pittman & Chase-Lansdale, 2001) and may be relevant to the prevention of the intergenerational continuity of child abuse among African American families. For low-income African American parents, among whom there are heightened perceptions of danger, distress, and concern for their children’s futures (McLoyd, 1990; Pinderhughes, Dodge, Bates, Pettit, & Zelli, 2000), the protective nature of authoritarian parenting may be especially true. Heightened awareness to potential dangers may motivate stronger authoritarian attitudes and beliefs about parental control and subsequently facilitate greater protection against childhood abuse.

Present Study

The present study examined the intergenerational continuity of child abuse in a sample of adolescent mothers and their children whose development has been tracked over 18 years (Borkowski et al., 2007; Whitman, Borkowski, Keogh, & Weed, 2001). The current project analyzed data among mothers who reported abuse prior to 18 years of age and their adolescent children at age 18. Predictor variables included exposure to community violence, parenting style attitudes and race. The investigation had the following major hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: Mothers with a history of childhood abuse (physical, sexual, and/or emotional) would be more likely to have children who reported experiences of childhood abuse than mothers without a history of abuse.

Hypothesis 2: Among mothers with a history of childhood abuse, exposure to community violence and authoritarian attitudes about harsh parenting would predict intergenerational continuity of childhood abuse.

Hypothesis 3: The effect of authoritarian parenting on childhood abuse would be moderated by race, such that higher authoritarian parenting among African American families would operate as a protective factor, rather than conferring risk compared to Caucasian American families.

Method

Participants

Participants in this study included a subsample of mother–child dyads (N = 70) drawn from the Notre Dame Adolescent Parenting Project, a longitudinal study following, first-time adolescent mothers and their children from the last trimester of pregnancy through children’s adolescence (Borkowski et al., 2007; Sommer et al., 1993; Whitman et al., 2001). Teenage mothers were recruited from school-age mothers programs, hospital clinics, and social service agencies in South Bend, IN or Aiken, SC. For the present study, 70 dyads with complete data on both mothers’ and children’s abuse history measured by the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ; Bernstein & Fink, 1998) were included in the analyses; this represents 40% of the original sample participants.

Mothers in the study were between 14.5 and 19.5 years old (M = 17.35, SD = 1.05) at the time of their child’s birth; firstborns were included as target children in the sample. Prenatally, the average maternal IQ was 88.7 (SD = 11.6). Approximately 57% of the sample was comprised of African American participants, with 36% non-Hispanic Caucasian American participants and 7% Hispanic American participants. All participants were English-speaking. Most mothers were in low socioeconomic status categories with a mean Hollingshead Index of Social Position of 69.86 points (SD = 1.66). At birth, child participants had typical weights of more than 5.5 lbs (95.8%) and typical Apgar scores at 5 min (M = 8.9, SD = .74); 57% of children were male. The current subsample did not significantly differ from the adolescent mothers in the full sample on any of the aforementioned demographic characteristics.

Design and Procedures

Adolescent mothers were assessed in the laboratory or their homes during the third trimester of their first pregnancy. Prenatally, mothers completed questionnaires and provided permission to access birth-related medical records. Informed consent was obtained from all participants; if adolescent mothers were under age 18, their guardians provided informed consent and mothers provided assent. Families participated in several research visits beginning prenatally and ending when children were age 18 (Borkowski et al., 2007). Prenatally, we evaluated maternal authoritarian parenting attitudes; postnatally, maternal childhood abuse history and children’s self-reported exposure to violence were assessed at the 14-year assessment, and children’s self-reported abuse histories at the 18-year visit. For all assessment visits, mother and child participants were given the option of having items read to them by interviewers to account for lower literacy levels and informed consent was obtained. At the 14-year assessment, children provided assent, and at the 18-year assessment children provided their own informed consent.

Measures

Authoritarian parenting attitudes (mother)

The Parent Attitude Questionnaire (PAQ) measures parental attitudes such as authoritarianism, nurturance, rejection, and independence in conjunction with the Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI; Bavolek, 1985). The AAPI is a self-report measure that assesses attitudes about parenting in order to provide an index of risk for maladaptive parenting. The AAPI includes scales assessing inappropriate parental expectations, lack of empathy, and responsiveness toward children’s needs, parental value of physical punishment, and parent–child role reversal. Consistent with prior research on an authoritarian parenting style (Baumrind, 1972), the PAQ authoritarianism scale measures maternal parenting expectations that are high in control and low in warmth. Items are rated on a 5-point scale, with higher ratings indicating more agreement with statements such as Children should not be allowed to question their parents’ decisions and I believe too much affection and tenderness can harm or weaken a child. The authoritarianism scale of the PAQ consists of 5 items with an internal consistency coefficient of .74 and has been shown to predict parenting outcomes (Miller, Miceli, Whitman, & Borkowski, 1996; Sommer et al., 1993).

Exposure to community violence (children)

The neighborhood subscale of the Recent Exposure to Violence scale (EVS; Singer, Anglin, Song, & Lunghofer, 1995) was used to assess children’s exposure to community violence when adolescent children were approximately 14 years of age. Specifically, children in the current study reported the frequencies of directly observing threats and violent actions in their neighborhoods on a scale of 0 (never) to 3 (almost every day). For example, participants were asked how often have you seen someone else slapped, punched, or hit by someone in your neighborhood. The neighborhood subscale has good external validity (Singer et al., 1995). The internal consistency of items in the current sample was high, α = .85.

Presence of childhood abuse history (mothers and children)

The CTQ (Bernstein & Fink, 1998) is a 28-item retrospective self-report questionnaire that assesses childhood maltreatment experiences using a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (never true) to 5 (very often true). Mothers completed the CTQ about their own child abuse history at the 14-year assessment, and children completed the CTQ at age 18. The subscales computed from the 28-item CTQ (sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, physical neglect, and emotional neglect) are appropriate for both nonclinical and clinical populations, and have been shown to have good reliability, and strong construct and external validity, even among adolescent reporters (Bernstein & Fink, 1998). For example, scores on the CTQ have been found to be significantly correlated with trauma ratings from child welfare records, reports of family members, and clinician ratings (Bernstein et al., 1997, 2003).

In the current study, the sexual abuse, physical abuse, and emotional abuse subscales (each composed of 5 items) were utilized to determine the presence or absence of a childhood abuse history. Child abuse was operationalized by any score of physical abuse, sexual abuse, or emotional abuse that was above the threshold for mild abuse on that subscale. Threshold scores were distinct for each subscale (physical abuse >8, sexual abuse >6, emotional abuse >9; see Bernstein & Fink, 1998, for further details).

Results

Among adolescent mothers, 66% indicated a childhood history of sexual, physical, or emotional abuse. Specifically, 43.7% reported above-threshold emotional abuse (22.9% mild, 10.4% moderate, and 10.4% severe); 42.1% physical abuse (20% mild, 11.6% moderate, and 10.5% severe); and 38.5% sexual abuse (5.2% mild, 10.4% moderate, and 22.9% severe). Overall, 18.8% of mothers reported mild abuse, 11.5% moderate abuse, and 34.4% severe abuse in at least one domain (emotional, physical, or sexual). Additionally, 20% reported experiencing just one significant subtype of abuse, 24.6% reported two subtypes, and 18.5% reported all three subtypes of abuse. Descriptive statistics associated with maternal abuse status are presented in Table 1 . There were no significant differences on demographic variables, maternal IQ, or children’s birth outcomes between mothers who reported a history of abuse and those who did not. Additionally, there were no significant differences between abuse groups on maternal authoritarian parenting attitudes or children’s reported exposure to community violence.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics: Means and Standard Deviations for Demographic Variables by Maternal Abuse History

	Abuse History (N = 46)	Abuse History (N = 24)
Maternal age at child birth	17.3(1.0)	17.4(1.0)
Maternal ethnicity
% African American	52.2	66.6
Maternal IQ	89.9(11.1)	87.6(12.0)
Maternal Hollingshead rating	69.6(1.5)	70.1(1.8)
Child gender
% Male	52.2	66.6
Child birth weight (g)	3370.7(536.2)	3265.7(463.0)
Child Apgar score (at 5 min)	8.94(.77)	8.86(.71)
Authoritarian attitudes at prenatal visit	9.34(2.5)	10.15(2.3)
Child community violence exposure at age 14	1.61(2.0)	1.77(1.9)

Note. No significant differences were observed between groups.

Similar to their mothers, a large proportion of children reported above-threshold child abuse. Specifically, 45.7% reported significant child abuse. 30.4% reported emotional abuse (15.9% mild, 5.8% moderate, and 8.7% severe); 28.6% physical abuse (12.9% mild, 8.6% moderate, and 7.1% severe); and 15.7% sexual abuse (5.7% mild, 8.6% moderate, and 1.4% severe). Overall, 27.1% of children reported mild abuse, 7.3% moderate abuse, and 17.7% severe abuse in at least one domain (emotional, physical, or sexual). Additionally, 23.1% endorsed experiencing one abuse subtype, 9.4% two subtypes, and 10.8% all three subtypes of abuse.

Interrelations between all study variables are presented in Table 2 . Given the high-risk nature of the sample in terms of maternal age and IQ, both of these variables were included in the correlation matrix. Age was not significantly related to any variables of interest; however, maternal IQ was negatively related to authoritarian attitudes and African American race. Therefore, maternal IQ was covaried in regression analyses. Consistent with the prior literature, authoritarian parenting attitudes were positively and moderately correlated with African American race. Authoritarian attitudes were negatively correlated with child abuse, and maternal abuse was positively correlated with child abuse (Table 2).

Table 2.

Intercorrelations Among Demographic, Predictor, and Outcome Variables

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1. Maternal age	1.00	—
2. Maternal IQ	.06	1.0	—
3. African American	−.12	−.30^*	1.0	—
4. Authoritarian attitudes	.02	−.41^**	.39^**	1.0	—
5. Community violence	−.12	−.11	.15	.06	1.0	—
6. Maternal abuse history	−.04	.05	−.14	−.16	−.04	1.0	—
7. Child abuse history	.04	.10	−.13	−.30^*	.13	.24^*	1.0

Note. For dichotomous variables (3, 6, 7), the variable name reflects the value coded as 1.

^*p < .05.

^**p < .01.

Our first hypothesis focused on the intergenerational continuity of abuse. Chi-square analysis revealed that maternal history of abuse clearly increased the risk for children to experience abuse prior to age 18. Mothers with an abuse history were more likely to have children who reported abuse (54.3%) than were mothers with no reported abuse history (29.2%), χ²(1)= 4.03, p < .05. Furthermore, of the children who reported a history of abuse at age 18, 78.1% had mothers who reported a personal history of child abuse. Nonetheless, approximately half of the mothers with a maltreatment history were able to interrupt the cycle of intergenerational abuse continuity.

The second and third hypotheses focused on mothers with an abuse history (N = 46) and identified variables that distinguished families who demonstrated intergenerational continuity from those who did not. Because of our interest in the moderating role of race, the small number of Hispanic American mothers who endorsed an abuse history (n = 4) were excluded from subsequent analyses. A logistic regression was performed using three steps. In the first step, maternal IQ and race (a dichotomous variable that reflected whether mothers were African American (1) or Caucasian American (0)) were covaried. At the second step of the analysis, maternal prenatal authoritarian attitudes and children’s exposure to community violence were added to the equation to evaluate Hypothesis 2. In the final step of the logistic regression, a product term of authoritarian attitudes and African American race was entered to evaluate whether race moderated the relation of authoritarian attitudes to the prediction of intergenerational continuity of abuse (Hypothesis 3).

After controlling for race and maternal IQ, which contributed a nonsignificant proportion of variance to the model, the addition of maternal prenatal authoritarian attitudes and children’s exposure to community violence to the equation at the second step significantly improved the model fit in predicting the children’s abuse status at age 18, χ²(2) = 11.79, p < .01, allowing for 71/4% accuracy in predictions of abuse continuity (see Table 3 ). Consistent with Hypothesis 2, maternal authoritarian parenting attitudes was a significant predictor of child abuse status at age 18. A comparison of the mean values and standard deviations for the continuity and no continuity groups on these variables is presented in Table 4 . It should be noted that the direction of the relation between authoritarian parenting and child abuse was in the opposite direction than anticipated; low levels of authoritarian parenting were associated with membership in the abuse continuity group. Additionally, a positive relationship emerged between exposure to community violence and membership in the abuse continuity group.

Table 3.

Results of Logistic Regression Analysis Predicting Child Abuse Continuity

	Model R ²	B (SE)
Step 1	.00
African American		.14(.70)
Maternal IQ		.00(.03)
Step 2	.35^**
African American		−.11(.84)
Maternal IQ		−.04(.04)
Authoritarian parenting attitudes		−.53(.22)^*
Exposure to community violence		.51(.27)
Step 3	.46^*
African American		−8.56(4.43)
Maternal IQ		−.03(.04)
Authoritarian parenting attitudes		.03(.34)
Exposure to community violence		.62(.31)^*
Authoritarian × African American		−.95(.48)^*

Note.

^*p <.05.

^**p < .01.

Table 4.

Means and Standard Deviations for Intergenerational Continuity of Abuse as a Function of Authoritarian Parenting Attitudes and Exposure to Community Violence

	Abuse Continuity	No Continuity
Maternal authoritarian attitudes^*	8.45(2.0)	10.33(2.8)
Child exposure to community violence^*	2.22(2.4)	0.95(1.4)

Note.

^*p < .05.

Finally, a product term of African American race and authoritarian attitudes was calculated and entered as the third step of the logistic regression to address whether the association between authoritarian parenting attitudes and child abuse status would be moderated by race. Results indicated that the African American race by authoritarian attitudes product term significantly improved model prediction, χ²(1) = 4.59, p < .05, and accounted for significant variance over and above the main effects of the individual predictors. Additionally, exposure to community violence contributed a significant proportion of unique variance to the prediction of children’s abuse status.

To evaluate the moderation of authoritarian parenting on child abuse status by African American race, separate logistic regressions were run among African American families, and Caucasian American families. Among African American families, after controlling for maternal IQ, the addition of authoritarian parenting and exposure to community violence resulted in a significant improvement in model prediction, Nagelkerke R ² = .58, χ²(2) = 13.28, p < .01, allowing for 83.3% accuracy in predicting abuse continuity, and 72.7% accuracy in predicting interruption of continuity. Authoritarian parenting was a strong predictor of children’s abuse status, B = −.89, p < .05, such that lower authoritarian parenting was associated with membership in the abuse continuity group. Community violence individually accounted for a nonsiginificant proportion of variance B = .45, ns. In contrast, among the Caucasian American families, after controlling for maternal IQ, the addition of authoritarian parenting and exposure to community violence marginally improved model fit, Nagelkerke R ² = .28, χ²(2) = 3.70, p = .15. Authoritarian parenting was not a significant predictor of children’s abuse status, and the direction of its effect was opposite to the African American group, B = .55, ns. Community violence was marginally related to children’s abuse status, B = .98, p = .13. In sum, the relation of authoritarian parenting to children’s abuse status was moderated by African American race, such that authoritarian parenting was a protective factor among African American families only. Figure 1 illustrates the relation of authoritarian parenting to children’s abuse status by race.

Figure 1.

The relation of child abuse status to authoritarian parenting attitudes among African American and Caucasian American adolescent mothers.

Discussion

The goals of the current investigation were to identify protective factors at multiple ecological levels that could differentiate families who interrupted intergenerational continuity of abuse from those families whose children experienced maltreatment by age 18, among a sample of low-income adolescent mothers who reported a history of childhood abuse. The utilization of a longitudinal design over 18 years; the consideration of risk and protective factors at microsystem (authoritarian parenting attitudes), and exosystem (community violence) levels; and the examination of moderating processes represent a unique contribution to the literature on the intergenerational continuity of child abuse.

The rate of intergenerational continuity of child abuse reported in the current investigation, 54.3%, is significantly greater than prior prospective longitudinal studies, which have reported rates up to 23% by the time children reached age 21 (e.g., Pears & Capaldi, 2001). It should be noted, however, that this prior research focused on intergenerational transmission of abuse, which represents a subset of families in which intergenerational continuity of abuse (as was assessed in the current study) is present. Nonetheless, the discrepancy between the rate of intergenerational continuity of abuse in the current sample and prior research is substantially larger than might be expected. This high rate, however, is consistent with research that has identified maternal age at first child-birth as one of the three most significant risk factors in accounting for intergenerational continuity of child abuse, specifically, with maternal age inversely related to risk for child abuse (Dixon et al., 2005). Moreover, the current investigation is the first to provide prospective longitudinal data on the intergenerational continuity of abuse among low-income adolescent mothers and highlights the significant extent to which the children of low-income adolescent mothers are at risk for child maltreatment.

Increased community violence exposure was associated with greater risk for intergenerational continuity of child abuse, but only when considered within the context of authoritarian parenting attitudes and race. This finding is consistent with prior research that has established an association between children’s physical abuse and their reported exposure to community violence among school-aged children (Lynch & Cicchetti, 1998) and adds to the body of literature which documents the adverse effects of exposure to community violence on multiple aspects of child and family functioning (Margolin, 2000). Interestingly, Lynch and Cicchetti noted bidirectional relationships between child abuse and community violence exposure over a 1-year period; maltreated children, particularly those with histories of physical abuse, reported higher exposure to community violence and children’s exposure to community violence significantly predicted subsequent traumatization over the next year (Lynch & Cicchetti, 1998). Because the current investigation did not obtain information regarding the specific ages when children’s self-reported abuse occurred, we cannot ascertain the directionality of the relationship between community violence exposure and risk for intergenerational continuity of child abuse. Future longitudinal work should attempt to assess community violence and child abuse at multiple time points to clarify the potential transactional relationships between these two risk processes.

Authoritarian parenting attitudes conferred protection from the intergenerational continuity of child abuse; however, this effect was moderated by race such that the protective effects of authoritarian parenting attitudes were relevant for the African American families but not the Caucasian American families. The current investigation addresses a significant gap in the literature by evaluating a moderating process in the relation between risk and/or protective factors and the intergenerational continuity of child abuse (Berlin et al., 2011). Higher authoritarian parenting attitudes significantly predicted membership in the no-continuity group among African American families, but not among Caucasian American, demographically matched families. Interestingly, higher rates of authoritarian parenting attitudes were noted among African American families in the no-continuity group only, whereas the abuse continuity group of African American families and all of the Caucasian American families had comparable rates of relatively lower authoritarian attitudes. Therefore, we may conclude that increased authoritarian attitudes were protective for the African American families, but did not differentiate between Caucasian American families who continued versus broke the intergenerational continuity of child abuse.

The significant moderation of parenting attitudes by race is consistent with, and adds to, a growing literature that reveals how parenting practices may be associated with different child outcomes in different cultural contexts. Specifically, a number of studies have indicated that authoritarian parenting, or firm parental control among African American families, is associated with reductions in maladaptive behavior in children (Deater-Deckard et al., 1996; Gunnoe & Mariner, 1997; Lansford et al., 2004; Taylor & Roberts, 1995). Moreover, research among African American families reveals that that low parental supervision and monitoring are among factors associated with adverse adolescent outcomes (Pittman & Chase-Lansdale, 2001), a finding which is consistent with our results showing that belief in higher parental control (higher authoritarian parenting attitudes) was associated with reduced risk for child abuse among low-income African American families.

Speculating why authoritarian parenting attitudes may be associated with positive outcomes for African American families, Furstenberg and colleagues (1989) have argued that higher levels of perceived control over children in environments where families experience daily threat (i.e., in communities where neighborhood and school violence is high) is both adaptive and appropriate (Furstenberg et al., 1989). Parents may feel that thwarting child autonomy is necessary to ensure safety. Though this explanation is reasonable, especially for families living in poverty, it does not account for why authoritarian parenting attitudes would be adaptive for African American families, but not for Caucasian American families who are facing the same environmental risk. Within the current sample, authoritarian attitudes were negatively correlated with abuse, but only differentiated between those who were able to break the intergenerational continuity of child abuse and those who were not among African American families. This appears to be due to the fact that elevated levels of authoritarian attitudes were more common among African American mothers relative to Caucasian American mothers. Thus, even when facing the same environmental risk, low-income Caucasian American mothers did not possess similar rates of authoritarian attitudes relative to African American mothers, and their relatively lower levels of authoritarian attitudes did not confer protection or risk for the intergenerational continuity of abuse among Caucasian American families.

Another explanation for why authoritarian parenting attitudes are protective among African American families may involve cultural differences in parental perceptions of danger and associated experiences of distress and worry related to their children’s future. For example, African American families may experience psychological distress to a heightened degree (Mcloyd, 1990), and worry more about their children’s future in relation to socioeconomic hardships than do Caucasian American parents (Pinderhughes et al., 2000). There is evidence that this “worry” accounts for African American parents’ increased tendency to use physical punishment (Pinderhughes et al., 2000). Extrapolating these findings from physical punishment to the use of authoritarian parenting styles, it may be that increased psychological distress and parental concern for children’s futures motivates stronger authoritarian parenting attitudes among African American parents; subsequently, this greater control allows parents to better protect their children from childhood abuse. Future research should test specific mechanisms to explain why authoritarian parenting attitudes are protective for African American families, but not for Caucasian American families. Furthermore, additional longitudinal studies are needed to track associations between prenatal authoritarian attitudes and actual parenting behavior in relation to intergenerational continuity of abuse among different racial groups. These efforts may be informed by research that has delineated how different ecological niches contribute to parents’ goals and behavior in child rearing and how these may be differentially effective depending on the cultural context in which they are situated (Coll & Magnuson, 1999).

There are a number of limitations of the current investigation. First, child abuse data were collected via self-report. Though the CTQ is a standardized measure with excellent reliability and validity (Bernstein & Fink, 1998), utilizing multiple informants and multiple methods for assessing childhood maltreatment experiences would allow for more complete assessment of child abuse history. Nonetheless, we were able to utilize the same metric for both mother and child report which addresses a significant limitation of prior work on the intergenerational continuity of child abuse (Berlin et al., 2011). Future research should ask mothers for permission to access child welfare records to track new reports, investigations, and substantiations of maltreatment over time. Additionally, it would be ideal to assess maternal childhood maltreatment history prenatally; although the CTQ has high stability overtime, prenatal measurement of maternal trauma would ensure that her experiences as a parent do not influence reporting of her own maltreatment history. Another limitation centers on the lack of information available on the specific perpetrators of abuse. As such, we were unable to evaluate the intergenerational transmission of abuse by differentiating mothers who were victims of childhood abuse who subsequently perpetrated abuse to their own children and those who did not. Nonetheless, mothers are almost always implicated in child welfare cases, if not for actual commission of the abuse, then at least for failure to provide for children’s safety (i.e., neglect). Future research would be enhanced by thorough assessments of the perpetrator, and assessments of the severity and chronicity of childhood abuse experiences. With a larger sample sizes, issues regarding continuity of specific maltreatment subtypes could be addressed. Finally, replication of the current results within a larger sample is necessary, particularly regarding the nonsignificant relations among authoritarian parenting, community violence and intergenerational continuity of maltreatment for the Caucasian American families. It is possible that the relatively smaller sample size of the Caucasian American group precluded our ability to detect significant effects.

The current investigation has a number of substantial clinical implications. First, our findings highlight the need for researchers to consider the role of community violence, race, and culture in the development of parenting intervention and prevention programs for child maltreatment. As the results of the current investigation suggest, the implementation of various parent training programs and their effects on risk for child maltreatment may vary based on racial context; race and culture should, therefore, enter into the design and evaluation of intervention curricula. Furthermore, intervention programming should consider how to intervene against maltreatment without thwarting parenting practices that may be adaptive in particular cultural contexts. Specifically, among low-income African American families, intervention and preventive efforts should evaluate how to best provide parent training in ways that are respectful of authoritarian parenting attitudes. Moreover, should the protective effects of authoritarian parenting attitudes among African American families continue to be supported with subsequent research, intervention programs may want to consider directly facilitating the development of these parenting attitudes among at-risk African American mothers while still reducing the use of physical punishment. Finally, it seems important to screen all low-income adolescent mothers for their history of childhood abuse and their exposure to community violence; targeting preventive programs to these families during pregnancy or early in their child’s life may decrease rates of intergenerational continuity of child abuse.

Footnotes

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by NIH grant HD 026456. The third author was a NIH predoctoral trainee, T32-HD 007184.

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