Re: marital violence as child maltreatment

["Anna Hagemeister" <AHAGEMEI@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

The following is forward to the list by Annelies Hagemeister, from Jeff Edleson.
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Wanted to let people know that some new articles have recently been published dealing with factors in children's adjustment to domestic violence exposure.

Dr. Cris Sullivan's recent published study had results different than those noted by Runyan in a posting dated 2/2/2001.  She and her colleagues found a direct influence of DV on children's adjustment, NOT mediated by mother's behavior.

See:

Sullivan, C.M. et al. (2000). Beyond searching for deficits: Evidence that physically and emotionally abused women are nurturing parents. J. of Emotional Abuse, 2(1), 51-71.

Sullivan, C.M. et al. (2000). How children's adjustment is affected by their relationships to their mothers' abusers. J. of Interpersonal Violence, 15(6), 587-602.

Here she points to problems with studies that focus exclusively on mother-child dyads to the exclusion of father data. She found that abuser's relationship to child was a significant factor in child adjustment.

Thought these studies might inform this discussion.  

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Jeffrey L. Edleson, Ph.D.
Professor, School of Social Work
Director, MINCAVA - Minnesota Center Against Violence & Abuse
University of Minnesota
Email: jedleson@umn.edu Web: http://www.tc.umn.edu/~jedleson/
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