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Impact of Community Violence on Parenting Behaviors and Children’s Outcomes
Abstract
Children’s development is a product of parent–child interactions and the interplay between children’s environments and the individuals within them. Therefore, parenting dynamics and the context in which parenting occurs should be explored when examining children’s development. This study examines community violence exposure as a contextual variable for children’s development. A sample of 57 parents with students enrolled in Head Start programs throughout Washington, DC completed self-report questionnaires on community violence exposure, mental health symptoms, parenting stress, and socialization practices. Parents and teachers also completed measures of children’s social emotional competence. This study found that exposure to community violence has a complex relationship with parents’ psychological functioning, parental socialization, and children’s social emotional competence.
... 17 Mothers' fear of crime has also been associated with less frequent expressions of positive emotions with their children. 18 These parenting behaviors can inadvertently contribute to children's externalizing symptoms, as low warmth and high negativity have been associated with higher externalizing symptoms. 19,20 In older children, mediation analyses show that low maternal warmth can exacerbate the effects of community violence on externalizing symptoms, especially for children living in high-crime areas. ...
... Traumatic experiences, including witnessing violence, during early childhood interfere with healthy development, and can induce affective, somatic, behavioral, cognitive, relational, and self-esteem-related impairments (Berkowitz, 2003;van der Kolk, 2005). Although infants and toddlers cannot yet conceptualize firearms and do not necessarily grasp their lethality, they are likely to mimic their parent's or caregiver's response and are therefore, more adversely impacted by parental distress (Al'Uqdah et al., 2015;Schaechter & Alvarez, 2016). For example, a study of 160 children 0 to 11 years old found that maternal distress partially explained the relationship between community violence exposure and behavioral (internalizing and externalizing) problems in children, when controlling for socioeconomic status and family aggression (Linares et al., 2001). ...
Community gun violence persists as a daily reality for many youth in low-income urban communities. While most gun violence research has focused on the direct victims of firearm homicide, exploration into the broader public health repercussions of community gun violence on youth has lagged. This systematic review aimed to synthesize and critically assess the state of evidence on indirect exposure to community gun violence among low-income urban youth in the U.S. PubMed, Web of Science, ProQuest, and SCOPUS were searched for peer-reviewed articles exploring the scope, risk factors, and impacts of community gun violence exposure on this population. Of the 143 studies identified and screened, 13 studies were ultimately included. The broad themes emerging include (1) a lack of consensus regarding the range of experiences that constitute community gun violence, (2) exposure to violence involving a firearm as distinct from that with other weapons, (3) a need to conceptualize multiple dimensions of gun violence exposure, (4) differential impacts of exposure to community gun violence across developmental stages, and (5) how indirect gun violence exposure uniquely contributes to cycles of community violence. Future research must move toward a consistent typology, multidimensional conceptualization, and developmental- and context-specific examination of community gun violence exposure.
... ACEs include adversity within the family context, such as exposure to child maltreatment or living with a caregiver who has substance use issues (Felitti et al., 1998), or community-level ACEs such as neighborhood violence (Cronholm et al., 2015;Wade et al., 2016). ACEs have been found to be negatively correlated with parenting skills and resilience and can impact parents' psychological functioning and children's social emotional competence (Al'Uqdah et al., 2015). In fact, community-level ACEs have also been conceptualized as social determinants of health and include factors such as exposure to neighborhood violence, poverty, and discrimination (Gustafsson et al., 2014). ...
Since March 2020, families across the United States have faced challenges due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and its subsequent restrictions. Although some experts have voiced concern over the impact of COVID-19 on family well-being, few studies have been conducted thus far. This study utilized n = 250 responses from an online survey that was administered between May and June 2020 to gauge family stress and resilience among mothers of children ages 0 to 5 during the pandemic. Adverse childhood experiences were negatively associated with parental resilience among this sample. Furthermore, frequency of child care was positively linked to protective factors and resilience. Implications for practice, policy, and research are discussed, with a particular focus on the role of child care and school openings during the pandemic.
... Furthermore, it is also expected that the availability of resources is critical for the school to develop and implement safety programs and procedures, therefore unavailability of resources may be considered an issue that increases safety limitations in schools (Usmen, Asce, Bardan, Jayyousi, 2002). With regard to parents' awareness and knowledge of school violence and experience with violence, studies found a level of influence of these factors on their feeling of safety (Al'Uqdah, Grant, Malone, McGee & Toldson, 2015). ...
(Diaz-Vicario & Sallan, 2017; Hundeloh & Hess, 2003). Understanding parents’ perceptions of school safety
can be an important issue that will guide teachers (Bosworth, Ford, & Hernandaz, 2011), administrators and
staff (Heisterkamp, & Fleming, 2011), and legislators (Elliott, 2015) in setting strategies to enhance school
safety and school climate. The purpose of this study is to identify factors that contribute to parents’ views of
school safety. Based on existing literature, this study developed a model of one main endogenous variable --
feelings of instructional safety -- and seven additional exogenous and endogenous variables -- awareness of
bulling behavior, awareness of school violence, parent visits school, communicating perspective, experience
with violence, knowledge of risk, resources and school measures. A total of 403 parents who reside in the
southern part of Illinois participated in the survey. Path analysis with exploratory modifications was used to
examine the study model and the study hypotheses. The study findings suggested parents’ visits to school and
parents’ experience with violence had statistically significant direct effects on their awareness of school
violence, which had a significant direct effect on parents’ feelings of instructional safety. Although exploratory,
this study provided important insights on school violence, school safety and school climate, and implications
for future research in this area are discussed.
Background and Objectives
Individuals of color and of low socioeconomic status are at greater risk of experiencing community violence and food insecurity, which are both influenced by neighborhood conditions. We evaluated neighborhood collective efficacy as a linkage between community violence exposure and household food insecurity.
Methods
Mothers from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study who completed phone surveys when the child was 3 (time 1, T1) and 5 years old (time 2, T2) were included (n = 2068). A covariate-adjusted structural equation model estimated direct and indirect effects of community violence exposure on household food insecurity. A covariate-adjusted multiple mediator model estimated the indirect effects of the 2 neighborhood collective efficacy subscales (informal social control; social cohesion and trust).
Results
At T1, 40% of mothers reported community violence exposure; 15% experienced food insecurity at T2. Mean neighborhood collective efficacy (range 1-5) at T1 was 2.44 (SD = 0.94). Neighborhood collective efficacy indirectly influenced the association between community violence exposure and food insecurity (indirect effect = 0.022, 95% CI = 0.007 to 0.040). Only social cohesion and trust contributed independent variance to the indirect effect model (indirect effect = 0.028, 95% CI = 0.001 to 0.056).
Conclusions
Community-based efforts to reduce household food insecurity should emphasize building social cohesion and trust in communities experiencing violence.
With this qualitative research study, the researchers gained insight about the experiences of parents having to protect their children whilst living in violence-affected communities. The phenomenological research design supported by an explorative and descriptive strategy were followed. Eight fourth-year social work students were recruited and prepared as fieldworkers. The participants in this study were purposively selected ensuring that the most suitable data is obtained to gain insight into and explore in-depth parents’ experiences, challenges and coping strategies. Data collection was done through semi-structured interviews. The eight steps of data analysis proposed by Tesch (1990: 142) were applied to arrive at the identified themes and findings. The findings of this study provide vital information to disciplines such as social work, safety and security, and other health care professions who practice or execute their duties in violence-affected communities. The participants are very aware of the high levels of violence exposure by children in their communities, and the negative impact it has in threatening their children’s daily safety, ongoing healthy development and need for uninterrupted education. The active involvement of the very communities where violence is reigning, the private and government sectors need to approach this matter from a holistic, multi-dimensional strategy with the goal on strengthening parent-child relationships, eradicating violence by finding the main source and reason for violence and addressing it.
Objective: Attachment theory suggests that parent responsiveness to infant distress predicts secure parent–child attachment and subsequent healthy child development. While much is known about microsystem factors that interfere with responsive caregiving, there is a paucity of research investigating how exosystem factors, such as neighborhood crime, affect parenting.
Method: In a sample of 200 diverse caregivers and their 5- to 21-month-old infants (M = 11.82; 49% male), we leveraged data from a randomized clinical trial of Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC), an attachment-based intervention, to assess whether individual level burden (indicated by single-parent status, low income, residential instability, young parenthood, parental psychopathology, and own history of early adversity) and neighborhood crime density (geocoded within a 500 ft radius of parent’s residence) were associated with their beliefs about infant crying, an indicator of responsive parenting.
Results: Consistent with Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems' theory of development, both greater exposure to individual burden indicators and greater neighborhood crime density predicted greater maladaptive beliefs about infant crying, suggesting that contextual factors outside the household are associated with parenting cognitions. Further, when accounting for the effect of crime and individual burden on parental beliefs about infant crying, participation in the ABC intervention was effective in reducing maladaptive parenting beliefs.
Conclusions: We consider implications for multi-level intervention approaches that target family processes, neighborhood-level factors, and policy initiatives to promote community wellbeing and positive child development.
Since March 2020, families across the U.S. have faced challenges due to the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) and its subsequent restrictions. Prior literature has linked family stress to negative outcomes, such as parent and child mental health, increased risk of child maltreatment, and overall well-being, as well as protective factors that may help families navigate and respond to stressors. Furthermore, parental history of trauma, such as exposure to adversity in one’s own childhood, has been linked to stress and resilience. Although some experts have voiced concern over the impact of COVID-19 on family well-being, few studies have been conducted thus far. This study utilized N = 523 responses from an online survey that was administered between May and June 2020 to gauge family stress and resilience among parents of children ages zero-to-five during the pandemic. There was a negative relationship between ACE score and parental resilience among this sample. Furthermore, frequency of childcare was positively linked to protective factors and resilience, while childcare barriers were negatively linked to resilience. Implications for practice, policy, and research are discussed, with a particular focus on the role of childcare and school openings during the pandemic.
Children who experience violence in their families and communities are at increased risk for a wide range of psychological and behavioral difficulties, but some exhibit resilience, or adaptive functioning following adversity. Understanding what promotes resilience is critical for developing more effective prevention and intervention strategies. Over 100 studies have examined potential protective factors for children exposed to violence in the past 30 years, but there has been no quantitative review of this literature. In order to identify which protective factors have received the strongest empirical support, we conducted a meta-analysis of 118 studies involving 101,592 participants. We separately evaluated cross-sectional (n = 71) and longitudinal (n = 47) studies testing bivariate, additive, and buffering effects for eleven proposed protective factors. Effect sizes generally were stronger in cross-sectional than longitudinal studies, but four protective factors—self-regulation, family support, school support, and peer support—demonstrated significant additive and/or buffering effects in longitudinal studies. Results were consistent across type of violence experienced (i.e., maltreatment, intimate partner violence, community violence). The review highlights the most robust predictors of resilience, identifies limitations of this work, and offers directions for improving our understanding of the processes and programs that foster resilience in children exposed to violence.
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