Suchergebnisse

Although previous studies have concluded that maternal support following children's sexual abuse disclosures is an important predictor of children's symptoms, the empirical data to support this is limited. Much of the small prior literature has used measures of maternal support without adequately reported psychometric properties, which may obscure the true relationship between support and children's sexual behaviors. Further, it is unclear whether maternal support is related to children's sexual acting out in the context of known predictors of sexual behaviors. The purposes of the current study were to (1) examine the relationships between support and children's sexual behaviors and (2) determine whether support is related to sexual behaviors after controlling for known predictors among 161 treatment-seeking children (6–12 years old; M = 8.70, SD = 2.69) and their nonoffending mothers. In the bivariate analyses, emotional support was negatively related to children's sexual behaviors, whereas maternal blame/doubt was positively correlated with sexual behaviors. Nonetheless, after controlling for other predictors, emotional support predicted developmentally related sexual behaviors but not sexual abuse–specific sexual behaviors. Levels of emotional support and blame/doubt predicted children's total sexual behaviors, after accounting for identified predictors, suggesting that support may play a small role in understanding children's sexual behaviors.

This study aimed to examine: (1) the relationship between parental psychopathology and child psychopathology in military families and (2) parenting sense of competence as a mediator of the relationship between veteran psychopathology and child psychopathology. As part of their standard clinical evaluations, 215 treatment-seeking veterans who reported having a child between the ages of 4 and 17 were assessed for psychopathology (posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, and stress), their sense of competence as a parent, and their child's psychopathology (internalizing, externalizing, and attentional symptoms). A path analysis model examining parenting sense of competence as a mediator of the relationship between veteran psychopathology and child psychopathology showed significant indirect effects of veteran depression on all child psychopathology outcomes via parenting sense of competence. Parental sense of competence may be a critical mechanism linking veteran depression and child psychopathology, and may therefore be an important target for intervention.