Article Summary
Huth-Bocks, A.C., and Hughes, H.M. May 2008.
Parenting stress, parenting behavior, and children's adjustment in families experiencing intimate partner violence. Journal of Family Violence 23(4):243–252.
The authors state at the outset that parental stress has a strong impact on children’s behavior and emotional problems. They describe a study involving 190 battered woman and their 4- to 12-year-old children. They present data for both mother-reported emotional-behavioral problems and children-reported depressive symptoms. An interesting finding is that the severity of the partner violence is not significant in the relationship between parenting stress, parenting behavior, and child outcomes. This is, the author notes, in contrast with data from other studies (e.g., Holden et al. 1998; Jouriles et al. 1996; Levendosky and Graham-Bermann 1998; Levendosky eta l. 2003). But the study pointed to a strong link between parental stress and child difficulties.
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