The Moderating and Mediating Role of Responsive Parenting Behavior in Explaining the Link between Intimate Partner Violence and Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms in Young Children

AbstractResponsive parenting serves an influential role in explaining the link between children ’s exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) and children’s mental health impairment, but how this occurs is not well elucidated. In some cases, researchers examine parenting as a mediator to explain how IPV leads to maladaptive outcomes (i.e., IPV negatively impacts one’s capacity for respo nsive parenting, which in turn impacts children), whereas others examine moderation in which either the absence of responsive parenting exacerbates adverse outcomes or increased responsive parenting buffers risk. Mediation addresses theoretical questions abouthow orwhy IPV leads to maladaptive outcomes, whereas moderation addresseswho might be most impacted. However, responsive parenting has rarely, if ever, been tested as both a mediator and moderator of the link between IPV and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) within the same sample. The current study examined the mediating and moderating role of responsive parenting on physical IPV exposure and child PTSS in a longitudinal sample of 391 children ages 3 to 5 years (M = 4.74,SD = 0.89). Self-report measures of physical IPV exposure, parenting practices, and PTSS were completed by mothers. We found that responsive parenting significantly moderatedand mediated the association between physical IPV exposure and child PTSS over time. Studies that include tests of both moderation and mediation are critical for advancing mechanist...
Source: Journal of Child and Adolescent Trauma - Category: Child Development Source Type: research