Intergenerational Impact of Violence Exposure: Emotional-Behavioural and School Difficulties in Children Aged 5–17

Background and Objectives: The intergenerational impacts of parental exposure to violence during childhood and adulthood have largely been investigated separately. This limits our understanding of how cumulative violence exposure over a lifespan elevates the risk of subsequent generation's maladjustment. To address this, we examined if parental exposure to violence during childhood and during adulthood was associated with increased emotional-behavioural and school difficulties among the children of these parents. Further, we examined if parental exposure to cumulative violence increased the odds of their children experiencing difficulties.Participants and Setting: 705 participants (354 mothers and 351 fathers) from the 2019 New Zealand Family Violence Survey, a population-based study conducted in New Zealand between March 2017 and March 2019.Methods: Multivariable logistic regressions were conducted to ascertain the impact of parental exposure to violence on children's outcomes after adjustment for sociodemographic characteristics. The impact of parental cumulative violence exposure on children's outcomes was also explored.Results: Findings indicated that children of parents who had histories of exposure to violence during childhood were at increased risk for experiencing emotional-behavioural or school difficulties. However, where parents reported a history of childhood abuse but not adult experience of violence, their children had similar odds of experiencing difficulties as the children of parents who had not been exposed to any violence in their lifetime. Children of parents who had been exposed to violence only during adulthood were at higher risk of experiencing emotional-behavioural difficulties compared with children of parents with no violence exposure. Children of parents with histories of exposure to violence during both childhood and adulthood had the highest prevalence of experiencing emotional/behavioural and school difficulties.Conclusion: These findings highlight the intergenerational impacts of violence exposure and the complex intersections between parents' and children's life experiences. Our findings suggest the need for violence prevention initiatives to foster the development of safe, stable and nurturing relationships and to expand services for parents already exposed to violence to build resilience and to break the inter-generational cycle of disadvantage.

Developmental Assets in South African Adolescents Exposed to Violence: a Qualitative Study on Resilience

Violence exposure is associated with psychological and behavioural maladjustment in adolescents. Yet, not all adolescents exposed to violence experience negative symptoms. Resilience is an outcome that is in part determined by multiple protective factors, or developmental assets, that protect adolescents from the negative influence of encountered stressors and allow them to attain positive developmental outcomes. A qualitative study was conducted to acquire an in-depth understanding of the developmental assets across different layers in the ecological system that promote positive psychological and behavioural functioning in South African adolescents exposed to violence. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with a multi-ethnic group (black, white, and people of mixed heritage) of South African adolescents (boy: n = 17; girl: n = 13; age: 14–19 years) from seven schools in Cape Town. Adolescents reported both internal and external assets that helped them adaptively cope with violence exposure. The internal assets entailed individual characteristics and skills, including commitment to learning, positive values, positive identity, social competencies, and emotional insight. The external assets were boundaries and expectations, social support from adolescents’ peers, family, school, and community, and adolescents’ constructive use of time. The findings of the study may inform strengths-based interventions to enhance emotional and behavioural skills in adolescents at risk for violence exposure. Moreover, involving key stakeholders in the interventions from major developmental domains can be particularly helpful to optimise the social support that are needed for adolescents to be resilient.

School connectedness as a protective factor against childhood exposure to violence and social deprivation: A longitudinal study of adaptive and maladaptive outcomes

School connectedness, a construct indexing supportive school relationships, has been posited to promote resilience to environmental adversity. Consistent with prominent calls in the field, we examined the protective nature of school connectedness against two dimensions of early adversity that index multiple levels of environmental exposure (violence exposure, social deprivation) when predicting both positive and negative outcomes in longitudinal data from 3,246 youth in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (48% female, 49% African American). Child and adolescent school connectedness were promotive, even when accounting for the detrimental effects of early adversity. Additionally, childhood school connectedness had a protective but reactive association with social deprivation, but not violence exposure, when predicting externalizing symptoms and positive function. Specifically, school connectedness was protective against the negative effects of social deprivation, but the effect diminished as social deprivation became more extreme. These results suggest that social relationships at school may compensate for low levels of social support in the home and neighborhood. Our results highlight the important role that the school environment can play for youth who have been exposed to adversity in other areas of their lives and suggest specific groups that may especially benefit from interventions that boost school connectedness.

Differentiating Between Us & Them: Reduced In-Group Bias as a Novel Mechanism Linking Childhood Violence Exposure with Internalizing Psychopathology

Strong in-group bonds may promote mental health across development. Violence exposure influences social information processing biases and may also relate to social categorization processes. We examined associations of violence exposure with psychopathology and behavioral and neural indices of implicit and explicit in-group bias after minimal group assignment in children followed longitudinally across three time points from ages 5 to 10 years old (n = 101). In a pre-registered analysis, violence exposure was associated with lower implicit in-group bias, which in turn was associated prospectively with higher internalizing symptoms and mediated the longitudinal association between violence exposure and internalizing symptoms. Violence-exposed children did not exhibit the negative functional coupling between the left vmPFC and left amygdala when classifying in-group vs. out-group members that was observed in children without violence exposure. Reduced implicit bias for one’s in-group may represent a novel mechanism linking violence exposure with the development of internalizing symptoms.

Moderating Effects of Coping Style on Externalizing Behaviors and Substance Use in Urban Adolescents Exposed to Community Violence

Community violence exposure is associated with externalizing problems in adolescents, yet little research has examined the moderating role of coping in these relationships. Eighty-four low-income, urban adolescents (Mage = 13.36, 50%male, 95%African American) participated in two waves of a longitudinal study a year and a half apart. Youth reported their community violence exposure and coping styles at Wave 1, and their delinquent behavior, physical aggression, and substance use at Waves 1 and 2. Conduct problems were assessed by parent-report at Waves 1 and 2. Results showed that avoidant coping predicted less delinquency, aggression, substance use, and conduct problems over time. Further, avoidant coping attenuated the effect of community violence on delinquency. Problem-focused and emotion-focused coping did not moderate community violence exposure effects. Findings suggest that among low-income, minority urban youth, avoidant coping may protect against the development of externalizing problems in the context of community violence exposure.

Violence and sociodemographic related factors among a sample of Egyptian women during the COVID-19 pandemic

Background Violence against women is a worldwide problem that affects different social and economic classes, and this violence has almost increased with pandemics as the COVID-19 pandemic. The present survey aimed to assess the prevalence of violence against women in Egypt during the COVID-19 pandemic and to identify the relationship between sociodemographic factors and violence exposure. A total of 509 women were recruited using a self-completion e-form questionnaire. Results The prevalence of violence experienced by women was (43.8%); the most common type was the emotional representing (96.0%) of exposed women, while sexual violence was the least common (13.5%). Violence exposure was affected significantly by residence governorates, husbands’ working status, reduced husbands’ working hours, and history of violence exposure. Conclusions Violence against women in Egypt was increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, which raises the need for a strong and urgent anti-violence program to control this problem.