Intergenerational Continuity of Child Maltreatment,Parenting,and Racism: Commentary on Valentino et al.,(2012)

Theoretical Models

Grounded in a developmental psychopathology perspective, we currently understand child maltreatment as a phenomenon that emerges out of a complex pattern of maladaptation across time and multiple levels of ecology (Valentino, & Edler, 2022). The Ecological-Transactional Model of Child Maltreatment (Cicchetti & Lynch, 1995; Cicchetti & Valentino, 2006) provides a framework of how processes at each level of the child’s ecology may exert reciprocal or transactional influences on each other to explain the emergence of child maltreatment and to shape the course of child development. The Ecological-Transactional model focuses on four levels of ecology in which the individual is embedded. The most distal ecological level is the macrosystem, including cultural values and beliefs. Embedded within this level is the exosystem, which includes community-level factors (e.g., community violence, neighborhood racial concentrations). Even more proximal to the child is the microsystem, which refers to the child’s immediate contexts such as the family or school communities. Finally, the model includes emphasis on the ontogenic level of development, which are processes operating at the individual level such as emotional and physiological regulation.

The ecological-transactional perspective emphasizes that risk and protective factors associated with child maltreatment are present at each level of ecology. Consistent with other ecological frameworks, factors operating at levels more proximal to the child are expected to have a greater influence on child development relative to factors operating at more distal levels of ecology (e.g., Cecil et al., 2014). Accordingly, research on child maltreatment has typically focused most on proximal (micro-system) level processes relative to factors that are at more distal levels (macro-system). Thus, despite the well-documented influence of context and culture on children’s health and development in the past several decades, especially with regard to the association between racism and child development (GarcíaColl et al., 1996; Iruka et al., 2022; Priest et al., 2013; Quintana et al., 2006; Shonkoff et al., 2021; Valrie et al., 2020); efforts to understand more macro influences on child maltreatment have lagged behind. This problem is not unique to research on child maltreatment; related fields, such as clinical science, have also raised awareness of the lack of research on macrosystem factors, including racism, in particular (Buchanan, & Wiklund, 2020).

Although there has been explicit acknowledgment that risk and protective factors may influence other factors at the same level (horizontally) and across levels (vertically) over time (Cicchetti, & Lynch, 1995; Cicchetti, & Valentino, 2006), there has been relatively little evaluation of macro-level risk and protective processes in child maltreatment research, or discussion of how risk factors (e.g., racism) or protective factors (e.g., cultural values) may influence processes, such as parenting, at other ecological levels in relation to child maltreatment, specifically. Importantly, the influence of risk and protective factors at the macro level on and across other ecological levels of analyses have been elaborated in theoretical models of minority youth development (e.g., Cross et al., 2022; GarcíaColl et al., 1996).

Garcia-Coll et al.’s (1996) integrative developmental model of minority youth development posits that racism, discrimination, segregation, and marginalization create conditions that directly affect the family’s social environments, including parenting practices. This model is seminal and innovative from prior ecological frameworks of child development for introducing constructs associated with social position and social stratification, including racism, at the core, rather than at the periphery of theory on child development. In particular, this integrative model posits that racism has direct and indirect effects on children and the multiple ecological levels in which they are embedded and highlights the complex ways that parenting behaviors are influenced by racism, discrimination and oppression (García-Coll et al., 1996). Indeed, in studies with Black mother-youth dyads, Murry et al., (2022) found that mother’s experiences of racism impacted her psychological functioning, which in turn were associated with more negative parenting styles and worsened parent and child relationship quality. Similar trends were observed with African American family triads, such that youth’s reports of racial discrimination were associated with poorer relationship quality with fathers and mothers, and lower mother-child warmth (Riina, & McHale, 2012). In both studies, the authors (Murry et al., 2022; Riina, & McHale, 2012) conceptualized the phenomenon within the emotional spillover framework, which posits that stress experienced in one context can spillover to a different context and affect family functioning (Bolger et al., 1989). Racism, in its multiple forms, adversely affects Black families and consequently spills over into everyday life functioning, proliferating stress, disrupting attachment-based and cooperative parenting efforts through increased familial conflict (Brody et al., 2008; Murry et al., 2022; Williams, 2018). It is worth noting that both parents’ and youth’s individual experiences of racism impact parent and youth relationship quality, highlighting that one family member’s experience of racism can negatively impact the entire family dynamic. Thus, while previous models of ecological theory define the macrosystem as a system that affects “attitudes and ideologies of culture” as a separate entity, we see here that prejudicial beliefs and discriminatory practices permeate across all systems and negatively impact child development (Vélez-Agosto et al., 2017).

Racism and Child Maltreatment

Racism, described analogous to an endemic virus, is ever present in society and affects development since before the child’s conception and the negative effects persist until death (Anderson et al., 2022; Gee et al., 2012; Jones et al., 2020). The adverse effects of racism have been documented in maternal and infant health outcomes (Margerison-Zilko et al., 2017; Mehra et al., 2017), educational experiences (e.g., Bates, & Glick, 2013), places of residence (Phelan, & Link, 2015), community violence (Burrell et al., 2021), healthcare experiences (Peek et al., 2010; Wren Serbin, & Donnelly, 2016), and even mortality rates (Chae et al., 2015; Siegel et al., 2022). Specific to Black youth, racism is a unique adverse childhood experience that must be conceptualized within the understanding that it draws from historical/generational traumatic experiences of their ancestors (Bernard et al., 2020) and impacts neurodevelopment, socioemotional and cognitive well-being, health behaviors, and health outcomes (e.g., Assari & Mincy, 2021; Becares et al., 2015; Rosenthal et al., 2018). The evidence is clear, Black youth, compared to their white peers, are disproportionately impacted by the adverse childhood experiences of maltreatment and household dysfunction (Maguire-Jack et al., 2020; Zhang, & Monnet, 2021). Racial biases, including those among child protection workers, and systemic racism contribute to racial disproportionality and disparity in the child welfare system (Miller et al., 2013; Stephens, 2022), even after controlling for socioeconomic factors (Dettlaff et al., 2011). Indeed, children of color are at greater risk of child protection reports (Fontes, 2005). Further, Black and Latinx children are more likely to be removed from their homes and placed into foster care, to remain in care longer, and have more placement disruptions/changes, and are also less likely to be reunified with their parents (Hill, 2008). Clearly, greater efforts to evaluate structural racism and to delineate how it affects both risk for child maltreatment directly, and indirectly through processes operating at other ecological levels, are important priorities for future research.

Relevance for Valentino et al., 2012

In Valentino et al., (2012) authoritarian parenting attitudes, characterized by higher parental control and lower parental warmth, were identified as protective against the intergenerational continuity of child abuse for Black families only. The discussion highlights that authoritarian parenting may be associated with more positive outcomes for Black families because higher control over children in environments where families experience daily threat is both adaptive and appropriate (e.g., Furstenberg et al., 1989). In further discussing the threats that Black families may face, however, the discussion points to high rates of community violence, rather than considering the threat of racism. As such, the discussion wonders why there would be differences in the function of authoritarian parenting between Black and white families, if they are living in the same neighborhoods with the same levels of exposure to community violence. An obvious answer, of course, is that Black families are navigating exposure to racism whereas white families are not, and this has important implications for parenting behavior. Indeed, recent work estimates that Black adolescents average over five discrimination experiences each day (English et al., 2020), and that parental experiences of discrimination can increase parent-child conflict in the home (Galán et al., 2022).

In the context of racism, Black parents approach parenting in complex ways to prepare their children to navigate a society in which they are marginalized (Hughes et al., 2006). Black mothers may be concerned that their parenting, or their children’s behavior, may be judged more negatively in the context of racism (Cauce et al., 1996; Hill, 1995). As such, they may engage in more limit setting and have narrower expectations for acceptable child behavior compared to white mothers to ensure their children avoid scrutiny and harm (LeCuyer, & Swanson, 2017; Thomas, & Blackmon, 2015). Indeed, LeCuyer (2017) note that “higher levels of ‘restrictive’ attitudes can be seen as protective and prudent under socially inequitable conditions (p. 838).” Thus, parenting behaviors and attitudes that value parental control (i.e., authoritarian styles) may be adaptive for Black families (Cole, & Tan, 2007). Moreover, it is important to be clear that parenting is multi-dimensional and that Black families are not a monolith. Therefore, the endorsement of higher authoritarian parenting attitudes among Black mothers compared to white mothers, does not preclude the presence of other positive, supportive, or protective parenting behaviors that Black mothers may engage in to balance the more restrictive attitudes they hold to help their children navigate a highly racialized society.

Lastly, it is important to acknowledge that the protective effects of authoritarian parenting were in relation to the intergenerational continuity of child abuse. Continuity of child abuse refers to situations where abused parents have a child who experiences abuse without distinguishing whether the perpetrator is the parent or not, whereas transmission refers to a subset of those families in which parents who were victims of childhood abuse are identified as the perpetrators of abuse toward their own children (Berlin et al., 2011). Thus, in the current study the abuse assessed did not specifically implicate parents as perpetrator. Future research should seek to disentangle how authoritarian parenting may be protective from abuse perpetrated by others, as opposed to perpetrated by a parent. As an example, though speculative, it is possible that more authoritative parents may be more likely to set firmer limits and to closely monitor who their children are around, limiting the potential for child exposure to abusive adults.

Future Research Directions

There are many important issues at the intersection of racism and child maltreatment to be addressed in future research. First, as the recent editorials emphasized, as a field, we need to address race as a social construct and to explicitly discuss racism in studies involving different racialized and minoritized groups (Briggs-King et al., 2023; Palusci et al., 2023). We also need to systematically study and consider racism as a pervasive stressor that uniquely impacts Black individuals and families, and seeps into all aspects of development and adaptive functioning. This notion is supported by recent studies noting that “there has been limited attention to the impact of racism in developmental science and how racism in all of its forms directly and indirectly impacts children’s development…” (Iruka et al., 2022, p. 110).

Further, we need to advance conceptual models of child maltreatment to incorporate racism and culture—both in etiological models and in our attempts to understand the sequelae of child maltreatment and child welfare involvement on parent and child outcomes (Stephens, 2022). Given the racial disproportionality of those affected by child maltreatment (Detlaff et al., 2011), our conceptual models are incomplete without giving attention to the factors that contribute to and maintain these disparities. Moreover, we are just beginning to understand the racism experienced by Black and Latinx mothers through their involvement in the child welfare system and the impact of this racism in the surveillance, reporting and assessment, and resulting determinations regarding Black and Latinx people in the child welfare system (Merritt, 2021). Broadly, our collective research on the impact of child maltreatment, or even foster care, has not attempted to disentangle the effects of child maltreatment itself from the trauma associated with racism encountered in the child welfare system.

Additionally, future research should consider additional neighborhood characteristics and intra-individual changes in neighborhood characteristics such as concentrations of white residents in relation to how exposure to racism may be perceived. Residential segregation is another social stratification reflecting classism and racism (Williams & Collins, 2001). Although African American and White families may be living in the same neighborhoods with the same levels of exposure to community violence, culturally informed research demonstrates that the concentrations of racial minority groups within neighborhoods also influence adolescent development. Indeed, Black youth and families living in neighborhoods with high White concentrations experience hypervisibility, and in turn, may feel unwanted and experience higher levels of racism (Assari et al., 2018; Stevenson et al., 2005; Stewart et al., 2009).

Finally, efforts to move beyond cross group comparisons to instead consider within-group variability in cultural constructs at ontogenic and microsystem levels such as acculturation, ethnic identity, and racial identity (e.g., Cuéllar et al., 1995; Volpe et al., 2022) are critical. Such efforts are essential for moving beyond erroneous deficit-based models that inappropriately attribute disparities to race and ethnicity rather than to structural inequities, and for extending and testing theories about human development and parenting that have been assumed to be universal but were developed with majority white samples (Volpe et al., 2022). Moreover, within-group designs may aid the identification of culturally-relevant risk and protective factors that influence risk for and outcomes associated with child maltreatment. This work will be particularly important for identifying developmentally appropriate mechanistic prevention and intervention targets, as well as for creating culturally appropriate treatment adaptations for Black families.

In conclusion, this commentary extends efforts to promote anti-racist science, diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) recommended by APSAC and Child Maltreatment, by commenting on Valentino et al., 2012. In particular, we addressed prior omissions in the interpretation of the results, to explicitly discuss how racism influences parenting and the intergenerational continuity of child abuse among Black families in the context of racism. In doing so, we hope to encourage additional efforts to delineate how racism affects risk for child maltreatment directly and indirectly through processes operating at all ecological levels.