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Relation Between Exposure to Parental Intimate Partner Violence During Childhood and Children’s Functioning

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Handbook of Interpersonal Violence and Abuse Across the Lifespan

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a prevalent social and public health problem that can have lasting effects on the entire family. Children in homes where IPV is occurring are often greatly impacted. As a result, a wealth of research has examined the relationship between childhood exposure to parental IPV and children’s and adolescents’ functioning. Within this vast literature, a host of correlates and outcomes has been examined as children’s responses to IPV exposure. In this chapter, the current state of knowledge regarding children’s psychological, social, physiological, and cognitive responses to parental IPV is discussed, including the potential for the intergenerational transmission of IPV. Findings related to youth’s ability to exhibit resilience within these families are also considered. Next, drawing upon the social-ecological model, individual- (e.g., children’s age/developmental stage, gender of child/parent) and relationship-level (e.g., severity and chronicity of the parental IPV, exposure to other forms of family-of-origin violence) risk, and protective factors that have been found to be moderators of the relationship between childhood exposure to parental IPV and children’s functioning are presented. Lastly, implications for future research, practice, and policy are reviewed.

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Correspondence to Patti A. Timmons Fritz .

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© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

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Fritz, P.A.T., Roy, E. (2022). Relation Between Exposure to Parental Intimate Partner Violence During Childhood and Children’s Functioning. In: Geffner, R., White, J.W., Hamberger, L.K., Rosenbaum, A., Vaughan-Eden, V., Vieth, V.I. (eds) Handbook of Interpersonal Violence and Abuse Across the Lifespan. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89999-2_312

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