Parenting stress, parenting behavior, and children's adjustment in families experiencing intimate partner violence

Children exposed to intimate partner violence are known to experience a number of negative outcomes, including behavioral and emotional problems; however, possible mechanisms accounting for this relationship are unclear. There is considerable evidence that parenting stress has a direct effect on child adjustment problems and on parenting behaviors; parenting behaviors, in turn, have been repeatedly shown to be related to child outcomes. The hypothesis that parenting mediates the relationship between parenting stress and child behavioral and emotional problems according to Abidin's (Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 21:407-412, 1992) model was tested in a sample of 190 battered women and their 4-to12-year-old children. No support for mediation was found for either mother- or child-reported outcomes. Parenting stress had a strong direct effect on child behavioral and emotional problems. These findings have implications for the viability of Abidin's model, as well as for interventions with battered women that address parenting stress.