NCJ Number
191111
Journal
Child Maltreatment Volume: 6 Issue: 4 Dated: November 2001 Pages: 353-364
Date Published
November 2001
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This study compared families of supportive and unsupportive mothers of sexually abused children.
Abstract
The objective of this three-generational study was to investigate the differences between families of supportive mothers of sexually abused children and those of unsupportive mothers of sexually abused children in regard to histories of abuse and attachment relationships and current functioning. Interviews and standardized adult and child measures were administered to a sample, including 99 nonoffending African American mothers and their children aged 4- to 12-years-old, of whom 61 mothers were classified as supportive and 38 were classified as unsupportive. Also in the sample were 52 grandmothers, of whom 33 were the mothers of supportive mothers and 19 were the mothers of unsupportive mothers. Findings indicated that a history of conflicted and/or disrupted attachment relationships between grandmother and mother, and mother and child, and less support provided by the grandmother to the child characterized families in which sexually abused children did not receive maternal support. Also, unsupportive mothers showed more substance abuse, criminal behaviors, and problematic relationships with male partners. Children of unsupportive mothers were more likely to have experienced prior physical abuse, to be abused by their fathers or father figures, and to be abused at home by a perpetrator who lived at home. It was concluded that disturbed intergenerational family relationships increased the child’s vulnerability to being abused by indicating that disturbed family relations were associated with lack of support to the abused child and could therefore exacerbate the effects of abuse. 3 tables, 87 references