ERIC Number: ED261775
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1984-Oct
Pages: 25
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Parenting Behaviors of Women Who Were Sexually Abused as Children: A Work-in-Progress Report of a Multi-Method, Multi-Trait Inquiry.
Burkett, Linda Padou
A multi-method approach involving observations, interviews, and parental self-reports of family behavior, was developed to investigate the parenting behaviors of mothers who either had been or had not been sexually abused in their families when children. Of the 20 families with mothers who had been abused, 10 were two-parent and 10 were single-parent, mother-headed families. All families in the study had at least one child between 5 and 10 years of age. Nearly all of the families were or had been in therapy for personal reasons. It was hypothesized that, in comparision with non-abused mothers, mothers who had been abused would exhibit (1) more enmeshed and controlling behaviors toward their children; (2) less sensitivity and responsiveness to signals from the child about the child's own needs; (3) more emotional dependence on the child as a caretaker and as the mother's primary interpersonal relationship; (4) more rigidity in their patterns of parenting behaviors; and (5) more likelihood of showing seductive behaviors, as defined by Sroufe and Ward (1980). Discussion of incompletely analyzed data points out aspects of family interaction and explores the impression that previously abused mothers either were struggling with depression, chemical abuse, and despair, or were caught up in a smothering, over-controlling, enmeshed kind of pseudo-nurturing. (RH)
Publication Type: Reports - Research; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Minnesota Univ., Minneapolis. Graduate School.
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A