Family violence in a community sample: Incidence and effects on child development

This research draws upon the first four waves of data from the Fragile Families Child Wellbeing study, which follows through surveys a national representative sample of families with a newborn child and unmarried parent living in larger US urban areas. The study first describes the incidence of family violence phenomena - specifically, maternal aggression and neglect toward the child, paternal/partner aggression and neglect toward the child, and male on female intimate partner violence (IPV) - to which the child is exposed in the first five years of life. Then it models using multiple regression the effects of this exposure on child developmental outcomes, i.e. cognitive ability and behaviors, which represent proxies for school readiness Both the type of family violence and conveyor of the violence are isolated through the modeling approach. This study applies a more inclusive definition of family violence -- based on the Conflict Tactic Scales - in considering the incidence and effects of this exposure on very young children. In doing so, the study contributes to our understanding of the true incidence of these phenomena in our families and tests for consistencies of negative associations seen in clinical samples against the experience of this broader community sample.;The analysis of family violence incidence showed considerable co-occurrence of maternal physical aggression and psychological aggression with each other and with other caregiver physical and psychological aggression. In addition, there was a greater likelihood of neglectful behavior reported toward the child when there was some indication of male on female IPV. The child development outcomes models indicated many findings of interest. Physical aggression evidences a marginal negative association with cognitive ability, while psychological aggression has a significant association with positive cognitive ability. Both types of aggression and neglect are generally associated negatively and significantly -- i.e. higher levels of aggression or neglect are associated with higher levels of concerning behaviors - across the eight behavioral variables modeled with some distinction depending on the type of behavior, e.g. externalizing versus internalizing. IPV exposure evidences a marginal association with lower cognitive ability and a significant association with increased Social Problems behavior. Finally, the presence of father or other caregiver in the home emerges as an important factor in these relationships. The mother's parenting style (i.e. level of aggression) often seems to follow from that of the father/other caregiver and the effects of the father's parenting generally weakens that of the mother in the outcome models.;The findings speak to the concern of our very young children growing up in aggressive, violent, and stressful environments, the challenges they face developmentally, and the implications for later achievement. In addition, the findings speak to the importance of the presence of fathers, their qualitative impact on the parenting approach, and the opportunities to target parenting interventions at fathers in general and batterers more specifically. These results suggest a greater attention to early intervention, screening and remediation -- involving both child and parents -- at the point a child enters into some formal educational setting.