Prior research has suggested that children are at a greater risk of maladjustment in cases where a parent has experienced childhood maltreatment. The purpose of this study is to explore the role of parent's childhood maltreatment in its effects on parenting behavior, parent characteristics, and child adjustment. The multiple pathways through which parent's childhood maltreatment can be both directly and indirectly linked to child maladjustment were explored. Further, risk and protective factors, such as early age of becoming a parent or high parent education, which may play a role were examined as both potential moderators and mediators of the relation between parent's childhood maltreatment and children's maladjustment. Overall, several of the hypothesized pathways were supported. In particular, parent depression and parent's socio-demographic factors were found to act as mediators and moderators of the relations between parent's childhood maltreatment and child maladjustment. There was lesser evidence of child maltreatment behaviors and parenting behaviors mediating or moderating the relations between parent's childhood maltreatment and child maladjustment. Recommendations for future research directions as well as directions for intervention and prevention efforts for at-risk families and children will be suggested. / Ph. D.

The current study examined the relation between parental empathy, parenting aggression and child maladjustment in a group of parents who perpetrated child abuse and neglect. Twenty parents who were court mandated to receive a parenting intervention program at the Nest Center for Women, Children, and Families participated in this research study. Information about parental dispositional empathy, parent-child specific empathy, parenting aggression and child internalizing and externalizing symptoms were collected through an interview with the parents. Parents in this study reported high levels of dispositional empathy, but exhibited low to moderate levels of empathy in a parent-child relationship rated by coders. Parents also reported low levels of parenting aggression across psychological aggression, corporal punishment and psychological control. Examining the relation between parental empathy and aggressive parenting revealed that parent-child specific empathy, but not dispositional empathy, was negatively associated with parental psychological control. In a subsample of older children in middle childhood and adolescence, parental affective dispositional empathy was negatively associated with child externalizing symptoms. The current study links parental empathy to parental psychological control and emphasizes the importance of examining empathy in a specific relationship in addition to dispositional empathy.

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