Assessing the Relationship of Maternal Attitudes toward Discipline
In
Emotional and Behavior Problems in
Children of Battered Women
Chapter 1
Introduction
While maternal attitudes toward child discipline methods are multi-determined, two variables are associated with harsh parenting beliefs and practices. Persons with histories that include both childhood abuse and the witnessing of domestic violence (DV) as a child (Dubowitz, Black, Kerr, Morrell et al., 2001; Gelles, 1997) are prone to harsh parenting behaviors and attitudes that condone physical punishment. In a nationally representative sample of parents, Thompson and Christiansen (1999) found, via cluster analysis, that persons who hold attitudes that devalue and denigrate children and believe in the efficacy of physical punishment tend to employ brutal child management practices. Such parents are more likely to have a history of victimization, such as witnessing DV. The researchers found that participants in all clusters reported using mixed forms of discipline with conflicting effectiveness. So, in an attempt to explain such variance, Thompson and Christiansen (1999) concluded that such variables as parents’ perception of their discipline effectiveness and their ensuing choices of discipline practices need further exploration. Thus, it is reasonable to look into parental attitudes toward child discipline and child behavioral outcomes within a domestically violent background.
Domestically violent surroundings are plentiful in the United States. Approximately 1,800 women experience abuse from an intimate partner every day (Texas Council on Family Violence, 1998). From their national representative sample of more than 1,600 couples living in the continental United States, Schafer, Caetano, and Clark (1998) estimate that one in five couples in the United States experience at least one episode of between-partner violence during their relationship. The National Council on Child Abuse and Family Violence (2002) reports that 12% to 50% of women in the United States experience some form of physical violence from their husbands or cohabitating intimate partner each year. Three to 10 percent of these abused women are believed to be victims of brutal, recurring assaults from their intimate male partners (Straus & Gelles, 1988).
Many women who experience frequent, brutal battering seek protection in shelters for domestic violence. Jouriles et al. (1998) found that two thirds of a sample of families residing in DV shelters reported an incident of spousal violence that involved a knife or gun. In contrast, the rate of 0-2% weapon use in physical marital violence was reported in a nationally representative community survey sample (Straus & Gelles, 1990). While women who seek sanctuary in shelters are the most obvious victims of intense DV, they are not the only ones affected. Somewhere between three million (Carlson, 1984, 2000) to 10 million children (Straus, 1991) are exposed to, and possibly traumatized by, domestic violence annually.
Well-designed research on the effects of DV on child observers has documented the connection of exposure to DV with several behavioral, emotional, and cognitive difficulties as varied as aggression against property and other persons to withdrawal and self-castigation (Carlson, 2000; Cummings, Pepler, & Moore, 1999; Hughes, 1988; Peled, Jaffe, & Edleson, 1995). Some of the child difficulties reported are aggressive, noncompliant externalizing behavior (Grych et al., 2000; Hughes & Luke, 1998; Jouriles et al., 2001) as well as internalizing problems such as anxiety, depression, and a heightened sensitivity and reactivity to other types of conflict (Cummings & Davies, 1994; Eisenberg, et al., 2001; Jouriles, Spiller, McDonald, & Swank, 2000). Research also suggests that disruptive parenting and a child’s gender either moderate or mediate the child’s response to DV (Carlson, 2000; Cummings, Jouriles & LeCompte, 1991; Jouriles, et al., 1998; Pepler, & Moore, 1999).
While the aforementioned externalizing and internalizing behavioral variables are established “danger signs” for children who have observed DV, other factors may help explain the relationship between DV and child emotional and behavioral problems. For example, parents’ attitudes regarding the regulation of their children’s behaviors and the appropriateness of corporal discipline methods could be specifically important precursors for identifying children who may develop long-term emotional and behavior problems.
Background
Previous research shows that DV has spillover effect on other family relationships (Brody, Arias, & Fincham, 1996; Erel & Berman, 1995); moreover, conflict between marital partners significantly increases the partners’ negative attributions of other family members (Fincham, Bradbury & Scott, 1990). Parental attributions about each other are closely associated with attributions they make about their child (Fincham & Grych, 1991). Additionally, McGuigan, Vichinich, & Pratt (2000) found that families who experienced DV during the first year of their child's life develop a significantly negative view of their child. Thus, it seems safe to surmise that families who experience DV may hold more negative attributions and attitudes about their children than those who have experienced no family violence.
It is not surprising that negative parental attitudes and attributions towards ones’ children may be expressed in overt behaviors. Pinderhughes et al. (2000) found that parents who make disparaging or hostile judgments about their children are likely to choose more severe discipline than parents without such antagonistic attitudes. McGuigan et al. (2000) established that a negative parental attitude toward offspring is associated with both domestic violence and child abuse while Strassberg (1995) found that hostile parental attributions toward their children correlate with severe disciplinary practices.
Moreover, previous research suggests several moderating or mediating variables in parental attitudes toward discipline. Jouriles & Thompson (1993) found high levels of general life stress tends to be prevalent in clinic-referred families. Pinderhughes et al. (2000) established that individuals experiencing higher levels of stress were more likely to report more reactive cognitions than did a control group and, in turn, use more harsh discipline responses. Because harsh discipline often is linked with inconsistency and unpredictability (e.g., Patterson, 1982), such discipline methods may negatively affect children's functioning (Pinderhughes et al., 2000).
An additional moderating variable that may that has been shown to negatively affect parental attitudes toward child discipline is gender. Jouriles and Norwood (1995) found that, in families characterized by “extreme battering,” both parents punish sons more aggressively than daughters. Further, as domestic battering becomes more intense, child externalizing behaviors increase, as does the probability of more extreme parental discipline methods.
Thus, much research has focused on parents’ negative attributions about their children combined with various other factors such as domestic violence, stress, inconsistency and unpredictability in parenting practices that may be associated with coercive physical discipline practices. However, the relationship between parental attitudes toward their offspring, parenting beliefs and practices, and children’s resulting conduct is less clear.
Attitudes about parenting responsibilities and direct parenting practices are not necessarily the same phenomenon: many adult values and beliefs about parenting tasks are not directly observable in their interactions with children. For example, parental beliefs in planning for the future or in creating a safe home environment are not usually expressed in distinct parenting activities. Rather these values may be identified by such indirect acts as saving money for the children’s future education and maintaining constancy and predictability in child management techniques. Children raised in such an atmosphere may assume their parents’ attitudes and beliefs and respond accordingly to the underlying, unstated values by evidencing responsibility in their schoolwork and maintaining stable peer relationships. Thus, parents’ attitudes, unexpressed as direct behaviors, may be more predictive of child behaviors than are many distinct parental procedures (Grigorenko & Sternberg, 2000).
Some parental attitudes about child management have been found to be consistent with observable behaviors. Thompson and Christiansen (1999) found that parents who believe in corporal punishment frequently hold attitudes that demean children, have anger management problems, and have a history of childhood abuse. These parents are more likely to abuse their own offspring than parents with a less punitive outlook. (Straus & Gelles, 1990 50% of men who frequently physically abuse their wives also physically abuse their children… and beaten moms are more than twice as likely to beat their children than non-abuse women) While research shows that parents respond to each child selectively and individual child attributes moderate or mediate parental discipline practices (Grigorenko & Sternberg, 2000), DV adds to the risk of child maltreatment to all children. Domestically violent families have been found to be more physically aggressive and, at times, the differentiation between their discipline practices and violent aggression is moot (Straus & Gelles, 1990). Thus, DV, negative parental attitudes toward their children, along with parental beliefs about child management techniques seem to be related harsh discipline practices and long-term child emotional and behavioral problems.
Problem Statement
Therefore, the problem this study will examine is the relationship between maternal attitudes toward discipline and child behavior problems in a clinical sample of (number) mothers and (number) children who received shelter from domestically violent environments.Hypotheses
In a select clinical sample comprised of mothers and their children who request shelter for themselves and their children as a result of DV, it is predicted that maternal attitudes about discipline (hereafter known as MAD) will be significantly associated with child externalizing problems (e.g., aggressive, delinquent behaviors) and child internalizing problems (e.g., depression, anxiety, somatic complaints).
It is predicted that the relationship between MAD and child externalizing problems will be stronger in male children and internalizing problems will be stronger in female children.
Theory
Attitudes are general evaluations people make about themselves and their surroundings (Petty & Capioppo, 1986). Attitudes help people summarize and categorize characteristics and traits along dichotomous dimensions such as good-bad, beneficial-detrimental, likeable-dislikable (Ajzen & Fishbein, 2000 ; Petty, Wegener, & Fabrigar, 1997). However, not all people form attitudes at the same rate or with the same intensity. Jarvis and Petty (1996) found that people differ in their tendency to evaluate with high -evaluators evidencing more and stronger attitudes toward social and political issues than those who evaluate their environment less frequently.
No matter how strongly-held an attitude may be, a person can hold conflicting positions about an object or situation, simultaneously, with one belief being a habitual or implicit one and the other explicit. It is not surprising that people tend to act upon their implicit beliefs more than their explicit ones as extra motivation and ability seem to be required to retrieve explicit attitudes (Ajzen, 2001). Thus, parents can hold an explicit belief in the value of non-violent parenting methods; yet act upon their habitual, co-existing belief in the efficacy of physical punishment.
Furthermore, the expectancy-value model of attitude formation and activation assumes that the more accessible attitudes are in one’s memory, the more influence the attitude has. Continual accessibility tends to increase the belief’s importance and value to its holder (Ajzen, 2001). Thus, it would seem that habitual, implicit beliefs would become more persistently accessible than the harder to retrieve, explicit ones and would thereby increase their importance.
In addition to implicit and explicit belief retrieval issues, affect and cognitions seem to influence attitude retrieval. Both cognitive and affective facets of memory influence memory retrieval, however, feelings tend to predominate and, like implicit attitudes, affect retrieval increases with practice (Ajzen, 2001). However, individuals differ in reliance on affect versus cognition as attitude determinants and the two mechanisms differ in importance depending the subject toward which an attitude is directed (Ajzen, 2001).
Implicit attitudes may be formed by one’s socialization and early childhood experiences. Possibly early attitude development is an outgrowth of exposure to parental explicit beliefs and behaviors. Bandura’s (1973) Social Learning Theory suggests that individuals learn coping methods by observing and imitating the behaviors of significant others in similar situations. Thus, children exposed to maltreatment personally and/or vicariously by exposure to parental aggression and domination may not only imitate the behaviors observed, but also adopt the predicted underlying belief system that drives those behaviors.
Sample
The participants were (Number) women who were sought shelter from an abusing partner and had at least one child (ages 4-9) with clinical levels of either oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) or conduct disorder (CD). This age range was selected because children who develop early onset conduct disorder are at increased risk in adult like for risk for long-term behavioral problems, mood disorders, and substance abuse (American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed., TR, 2000).
This project was a true experiment in which the families were randomly assigned to either intervention or existing support services groups. The treatment consisted of two major aspects: (1) providing emotional and instrumental support and (2) teaching child management skills to the mothers. After departure from the shelters for domestic violence, both groups were assessed on five occasions over a period of 16 months.
The following inventories were are part of the program and will be evaluated in this study:
Parental Attitudes:
Attitudes Toward Physical Punishment
Attitudes Toward Physical Punishment Partner
Child Functioning -- Teacher assessments:
Report Cards
Grades and Attendance Form
Teacher Reporting Form
CBCL Teacher Short Form
Child Functioning -- Mother assessments:
ODD, CD, ADHD Diagnostic Interview
CBCL Mother
Eynberg Child Behavior Inventory
Parenting Dimensions Inventory
Significance of the Study
As previously mentioned, violence toward women by their male partners is a widespread problem in the United States as it is estimated that 16% of married couples engage in at least one act of physical violence every year (Straus & Gelles, 1990). While women are the apparent victims in domestically violent homes, many have children who are troubled not only by witnessing inter-parental violence but also by their parents’ attitudes about and use of violent discipline practices.
Several literature reviews link witnessing violence between parents with a variety of behavioral, psychological, and social problems among children (e.g. Hughes, 1988, Margolin, 1998). McDonald and Jouriles (1991) hold that children’s exposure to uncontrolled violence may have negative psychological outcomes similar to experiencing other childhood traumas such as sexual or physical abuse. In the short term, witnessing parental domestic violence is associated with higher levels of aggression, passivity, withdrawal, somatic symptoms, anxiety, and suicidal gestures.
Adult children of domestically violent families also exhibit long-term difficulties. Studies indicate that adults suffering from depression and other psychological disorders report more childhood family conflict than do matched controls (Forsstrom-Cohen & Rosenbaum, 1985; Higgins & McCabe, 1994). Other research suggests that individuals who witnessed parental violence as children are more likely to be in violent relationships as adults, as either perpetrators or victims (Cappell & Heiner, 1990; Carter, Stacey, & Shupe, 1988). While these studies have some basic design problems, the research difficulties do not dilute the basic issue: battered women’s children are at high risk for continuing mental health and behavioral problems. Thus, evaluating possible correlates such as parental attitudes toward discipline along with child behavior problems seems to be worthwhile in attempting in guiding policy-making decisions of child welfare agencies and family courts systems.
Operational Definitions of the Terms
Attitudes: general evaluations people make about themselves, other persons, objects or issues (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).
Battered women: women who have experienced physical assault by an intimate partner (Jouriles, Norwood, McDonald, Vincent, & Mahoney, 1996).
Externalizing behaviors: aggressive, delinquent behaviors vs.
Internalizing behaviors: depression, anxiety, somatic complaints (Cummings and Davies, 1994).
Physical domestic violence: physical assault on intimate partner’s body (Jouriles, Norwood, McDonald, Vincent, & Mahoney, 1996)
Mediator variable – intervening variable: variable that plays a causal role in outcome (Grych, Fincham, Jouriles, & McDonald, 2000).
Moderator variable: variable that influences the strength of association between two other variables and produces an interaction (Cohen & Cohen, 1983).
Spillover: direct transfer of mood, affect, or behavior from one setting to another (Erel & Burman, 1995).
Violence: aggressive acts that that cause harm such as assault, rape, robbery, and homicide (Loeber & Hay, 1997).
Assumptions and limitations
Generalizations drawn from this project sample may be limited to families in which mothers seek shelter for themselves and their children as a result of DV. Mothers who are forced to seek such protection usually experience levels of violence so extreme that their children may comprise a subset whose functioning may be highly disturbed. Thus, this may be a very select sample of children who are at high risk for behavioral, emotional, and cognitive difficulties (Jouriles & Norwood, 1995).
Summary
In this research, I will examine the relationship between parental attitudes toward discipline, discipline methods employed, and ensuing child behavior problems in a clinical sample of mothers and children who received shelter from domestically violent environments. I project that parents who hold attitudes that devalue their children will employ aggressive physical punishment procedures that will be associated with externalizing behaviors in male children and internalizing behaviors in female children.
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