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Family Interaction Patterns

Patterns of verbal and nonverbal communication between neglectful parents and children have been characterized as infrequent and predominantly negative. Burgess and Conger found that there were significantly fewer positive interactions and more negative interactions between neglectful parents and their children than in either abusive or in nonmaltreating families studied. These researchers found that, compared with abusive mothers and nonmaltreating controls, the neglectful mothers stood out as the most negative and least positive in their relationships with other family members.

Crittenden similarly concluded that "neglecting mothers offered so little stimulation and responded to so few infant signals that they left their infants socially powerless and largely responsible for their own stimulation. Their infants showed correspondingly depressed levels of activity which reduced both the stimulations and feedback available to the already unresponsive mother. Mutual passivity was easily maintained." This low level of positive interaction and stimulation between neglectful mothers and their children was confirmed by a series of studies by Crittenden and others.

Crittenden describes distinctive patterns of interaction in neglecting, abusing and neglecting, and in marginally maltreating families observed in a small sample of these families. The neglecting families in this study were largely young families with few children, with more than one adult caretaker, usually the maternal grandmother or mother's boyfriend. Parental coping strategies were withdrawal, deference to others whenever possible, or leaving tasks undone. Discipline was rarely used with the children. The parents' informal support networks were characterized by almost daily contact with relatives, who offered some tangible, but not emotional, support.

The neglecting parents are characterized by Crittenden as unresponsive and withdrawn: "They responded to few of their children's overtures when interacting with them and initiated almost no activity... Their children responded with a reduction in communicative activity." Toddlers in the neglectful homes, as soon as they were able to walk, sought out their own stimulation through uncontrolled exploratory activity. Neglectful mothers largely ignored these "toddlers on the loose," only infrequently and ineffectively attempted to exercise some control by yelling at them, often without bothering to observe the results. The children merely imitated the parent's disregard.

Neglecting families who were also abusive were typically large, very unstable, and disorganized, with children sired by several different fathers. The mother had often lived with a series of men, been alone, and lived with her own mother for periods of time. "The only certainty was that the present structure, too, would change." The parent-child interactions in these families vacillated from the extremes of nonsystematic, unpredictable, violent episodes of physical punishment in an effort to control the children's behavior to sullen withdrawal. The goal was momentary peace and quiet relief from the chaos in the family. Children react to their highly unpredictable environment by being always on guard and chronically anxious. The need to be ever vigilant to unpredictable violent adult reactions resulted in the children experiencing significant developmental delays.

The marginally maltreating families were typically two-parent families, but with different fathers for the children. The mother-partner relationships were unstable and often physically abusive. These families were disorganized and chaotic, constantly reacting to a series of day-to-day crises with frantic, ineffectual activity. There were no consistent rules or expectations of the children, and discipline was an expression of parents' frustration. The marginally maltreating parents were not able to engage in systematic problem solving, but instead stumbled from crisis to crisis trying to cope with whatever limited methods and help they could muster. These mothers were not always angry and could respond empathetically to their children's distress when it was expressed dramatically through tears or tantrums. Consequently, tears and tantrums were frequent, but the solace that resulted was short-lived and not secure.

These distinctively different patterns of interaction in contrasting types of neglecting families reinforce the need to assess each neglectful family independently. Individualized family patterns suggest the need for individualized interventions to remedy the neglect.

Contextual Sources of Stress and Support

Neglectful families do not exist in a vacuum. The availability of formal and informal supports for parenting from outside the family system are critical determinants of the adequacy of parenting. Schools, churches, work settings, neighborhoods, and communities can supplement parents' resources for providing adequate care for children. On the other hand, these systems can produce additional demands and stressors, which make parenting more difficult.

Unemployment, which causes psychological and economic stress, is frequent in neglectful families. Neglectful families are less likely to be involved in church or other formal organizations that might be sources of tangible or psychological support. Neglectful families tend to live in impoverished neighborhoods and view their neighborhoods as less helpful and less supportive than do nonneglectful parents. Chronically neglecting families are viewed as deviant, even by their similarly impoverished neighbors, who avoid social contacts with them. Families of color, who are overrepresented in child neglect statistics, must also cope with the stress of racial prejudice in many communities.

Informal Support Systems

Most parents must rely at times on supportive relationships with spouses, other relatives, neighbors, and friends to cope with demanding parenting tasks, especially in times of illness, loss of income, or other life crises. Supportive linkages are particularly critical when the parent or child is handicapped by physical or emotional disabilities, or when there are many children to care for and few economic resources. Neglectful parents typically lack strong informal helping resources. The social networks of neglectful mothers tend to be dominated by relatives who are critical, rather than supportive. Interactions with relatives may be frequent, but not very helpful. Because neglectful parents often lack the necessary social skills to maintain relationships, already weak linkages tend to break down, leaving the parents isolated and lonely.

Stress

The coping abilities of neglectful families are severely taxed by stressful life circumstances. As indicated above, the majority of neglectful families are poor, and not only poor, but usually the poorest of the poor. A high proportion of reported neglectful families are dependent upon public assistance for income, and they have the lowest income and the fewest material resources even among AFDC recipient families.

Although chronic neglectful families are poorer and have more problems, the "new" neglectful families are under greater stress. For example, Nelson et al. found that 75 percent had experienced a serious illness or injury within the previous 3 years.

People of color are overrepresented in neglectful families. However, because of the higher incidence of poverty among Native Americans, Hispanics, and African-Americans, this overrepresentation seems to disappear when SES is held constant. The ethnic and cultural differences in child maltreatment are small or nonexistent when families have adequate economic and social resources, but the combination of racial discrimination and poverty places unusual stresses on families of color that frequently overwhelm their coping resources.

In summary, the causes of child neglect are multiple and complex. Most often neglect is the result of a combination of personal deficits in parents, conflictual, nonsupportive family systems and informal support networks, highly stressful life circumstances, and absence of environmental supports for parenting.

Tags: Child Abuse

About the Author

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