NCJ Number
190020
Date Published
2001
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This chapter argues that social scientists need to inform discussions about child custody and domestic assault with research on the impact of witnessing violence and marital separation on children and discusses future research needs related to domestic assault and factors that may relate to adjustment for children at different stages of development.
Abstract
The literature on children’s exposure to adult domestic assault may be most relevant for the subgroup of divorcing couples who approach the justice system looking for conflict resolution through mediation, arbitration, assessment, or custody trial. Legislation that recognizes the implications of domestic violence in child custody decision making varies greatly among jurisdictions. Divorce reform efforts aimed at promoting shared parenting or joint custody seem sensible in reference to the growing literature on divorce and children, but may be inappropriate to high-conflict families with a history of domestic violence. The first generation of research on children exposed to family violence sought to find correlations between exposure and negative effects. The next generation of research will use previously separate knowledge bases to synthesize the findings and expand the predictive ability of explanatory models. Future research will also try to increase the representativeness of samples of children, use classifications that reflect the complexity of abuse, follow children prospectively and longitudinally, and explore the interplay between risk and protective factors. Future research will consider a fuller spectrum of outcome variables using multiple data sources and will use sophisticated multivariate statistical techniques. Figure and 34 references