Child maltreatment: an ecological integration - Belsky - Universiteit Utrecht

Child maltreatment: an ecological integration 

Jay Belsky 

I propose to outline a system capable of integrating divergent etiological viewpoints that stress psychological disturbance in parents, abuse-eliciting characteristics of children, dysfunctional patterns of family interaction, stress-inducing social forces, and abuse-promoting cultural values. In so doing, I hope to demonstrate (a) that child maltreatment is multiply determined by forces at work in the individual, in the family, and in the community and culture in which the individual and the family are embedded; (b) that these multiple determinants are ecologically nested within one another; and, consequently, (c) that much of the theoretical conflict that has characterized the study of child maltreatment (and has possibly even obstructed progress) is more apparent than real. 

Belangrijke factoren als je de ontwikkeling van gedrag wilt onderzoeken: 

  1. Ontogenetische ontwikkeling van de ouders: hoe groeien bepaalde ouders op om zich op zo’n misbruikende/verwaarlozende manier te gedragen. 

  1. Antecedenten: waarom gebeurt kindermishandeling op een bepaald moment? 

  1. Consequenties: wat zijn functies van misbruik of verwaarlozing? 

Model van Bronfenbrenner: aandacht op de context waarin ontwikkeling plaatsvindt. 

  • Microsysteem: neemt plaats in directe huishouding; 

  • Exosysteem: grotere sociale systeem waar de familie in zit; 

  • Macrosysteem: culturele opvattingen en waarden die micro- en exosysteem beïnvloeden. 

In het model mist nog informatie over individuele verschillen die ouders met zich meenemen in het microsysteem. 

Framework Tinbergen: 

  • Ontogenetische ontwikkeling; 

  • Microsysteem; 

  • Exosysteem; 

  • Macrosysteem; 

Ontogenetische ontwikkeling 

  • Ouders die hun kind misbruiken, zijn vaak zelf ook mishandelt. 

  • De blootstelling aan en ervaring met geweld als kind, kan resulteren in het aannemen van agressieve strategieën voor coping in ouder-kindconflicten als volwassene. 

  • Rohner: het gaat om het ervaren van ouderlijke afwijzing, niet zozeer om blootstelling/ervaring. 

  • Veel ouders die zelf zijn misbruikt, kopiëren dit gedrag niet > er moet nog iets zijn wat bepaalt dat een ouder deze ervaringen kopieert.  

  • Het gebrek aan ervaring in het zorgen voor kinderen kan een belangrijke rol spelen in misbruik en verwaarlozing. 

Microsysteem 

  • Kinderen die misbruikt worden, moeten worden gezien als mogelijke bijdrager aan hun eigen misbruik. Er moet dus niet alleen maar naar de ouders gekeken worden. 

  • Hyperactief kind, of juist een kind dat helemaal geen aandacht vraagt. 

  • In families waar misbruik/verwaarlozing plaatsvindt, is er sprake van minder interactie tussen familieleden. 

  • Bijv. bij moeders: 60% meer negatieve interactie, 40% minder positieve interactie. 

  • Kinderen: 50% meer negatief gedrag. 

  • In fact, parental punishment tends to accelerate ongoing coercive behaviors on the part of the child. Child maltreatment may be the eventual (and possibly predictable) consequence of an escalating cycle of parent-child conflict and aggression. 

Exosysteem 

  • Sociologically based investigations of the etiology of child abuse and neglect have identified two exosystem factors that may play a role in the abuse process through the influence they exert on the microsystem of the family: the world of work and the neighborhood. 

  • The processes through which unemployment may eventuate in or, to use Gil's (1977) term, "trigger" maltreatment is likely to be varied. The mere fact that joblessness is associated with frustrating circumstances such as lack of monetary resources may account for this relationship. 

  • Additionally, the sense of powerlessness resulting from being dethroned as family provider might fuel intrafamily violence, especially when status can be regained by exercising one's force against defenseless children. 

  • Or maltreatment may simply be a consequence of the increased parent-child contact (and thus conflict) that results from the unemployed parent's spending more time at home. 

  • McKinley found low levels of job satisfaction to be related to severe punishment practices. 

  • The influence that the neighborhood exerts in the etiology of child maltreatment is demonstrated most clearly by the repeated observations that child-abusing families are isolated from formal and informal support systems. 

Macrosysteem 

  • Basic to the ecological model of maltreatment being proposed, then, is the assumption that societal willingness to tolerate such high levels of violence sets the stage for the occurrence of family violence, one form of which is child abuse. 

  • Even more clearly implicated in the abuse process is the general acceptance, if not sanctioning, of physical punishment as a means of controlling children's behavior. 

  • Also implicated in this macrosystem analysis of the etiology of child abuse is society's general attitude toward children. Particularly important may be the belief that children are property to be handled as parents choose. 

Conclusions 

The present article has sought to provide an integrative system by embedding the various etiological factors identified as influential in the abuse process within an ecological framework. Not only does this framework emphasize the potentially causative role that each of these factors may play in child maltreatment, but it also explicitly recognizes their interaction in the etiology of child abuse and neglect. More specifically, it delineates the structural relationship among individual, familial, community, and cultural factors that have been implicated by others as causative agents in the maltreatment process: While abusing parents enter the microsystem of the family with developmental histories that may predispose them to treat children in an abusive or neglectful manner (ontogenic development), stress-promoting forces both within the immediate family (the microsystem) and beyond it (the exosystem) increase the likelihood that parent-child conflict will occur. The fact that a parent's response to such conflict and stress takes the form of child maltreatment is seen to be a consequence both of the parent's own experience as a child (ontogenic development) and of the values and child-rearing practices that characterize the society or subculture in which the individual, family, and community are embedded (the macrosystem). 

When parents with little or no prior experience in child care (ontogenic development) are confronted with a temperamentally difficult, physically handicapped, or premature infant (the microsystem), maltreatment is likely to take place if there are no friends or relatives to whom to turn for assistance (the exosystem). An unplanned baby whose arrival stimulates spousal conflict or depletes already scarce household resources (the microsystem) will be mistreated if a parent with a developmental history of abuse or neglect (ontogenic development) loses his or her job (the exosystem). 

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