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Parenting Behaviors of Women Who Were Sexually Abused As Children in Their Families of Origin
Author(s) -
BURKETT LINDA PADOU
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
family process
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.011
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1545-5300
pISSN - 0014-7370
DOI - 10.1111/j.1545-5300.1991.00421.x
Subject(s) - psychology , sexual abuse , developmental psychology , child abuse , poison control , suicide prevention , injury prevention , human factors and ergonomics , clinical psychology , medicine , medical emergency
This research explored links between a childhood history of family sexual abuse and current parenting behaviors of mothers of school‐age children, using observations of family interaction and interviews with the mothers. Videotaped family interaction tasks, analyzed with Benjamin's Structural Analysis of Social Behavior, showed that women who had been sexually abused in their childhood families were more self‐focused, rather than child‐focused, compared to nonabused women. In interviews, the women who had been abused gave strong evidence of greater reliance on their children for emotional support. These findings lend support to theoretical and clinical impressions of highly permeable intergenerational boundaries, including parent‐child role reversal, in family systems marked by child sexual abuse, even when the abuse occurred in the previous generation.