Predictors Of Child Maltreatment Potential In A National Sample Of Mothers Of Young Children

Keywords

Child maltreatment; emotion regulation; mothers; physical abuse potential; temperament; young children

Abstract

Although previous studies have furthered our broad ability to predict child maltreatment potential, young children remain at the highest risk for experiencing maltreatment. Thus, several variables of relevance for this population were examined. A national community sample of 158 mothers with young children between ages 1.5 and 5 years rated their young children’s temperament as well as their own temperament, emotion regulation, stress, coping, and child maltreatment potential. Young children’s mood quality as well as mothers’ mood quality, flexibility/rigidity, emotion dysregulation, parenting stress, cumulated severity of stress, and emotion-focused coping added unique incremental variance to the prediction of child maltreatment potential, accounting for 67% of the variance overall. Further, mothers’ emotion dysregulation mediated the relationship between mothers’ flexibility/rigidity and child maltreatment potential. Consequently, emotion regulation skills represent an important point of intervention for mothers of young children who are at increased risk for child maltreatment due to difficult temperament characteristics.

Publication Date

4-21-2017

Publication Title

Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma

Volume

26

Issue

4

Number of Pages

335-353

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1080/10926771.2017.1299825

Socpus ID

85018727383 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85018727383

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