Prospective Relationship Between Intimate Partner Violence Exposure and Teen Dating Violence Perpetration: The Moderating Role of Parenting Practices

It has been well-documented that youth who have been exposed to adult intimate partner violence (IPV) are at risk for a wide-range of negative outcomes, including perpetration of adolescent dating violence (ADV). However, there also appears to be considerable individual variability in the effect of IPV exposure, as many exposed youth do not go on to exhibit violent behavior toward a dating partner. To better understand this diversity in outcome, the current study investigates parenting practices as a moderator of the relationship between IPV exposure and subsequent ADV perpetration. Participants included 415 middle school students (50.1% female) drawn from a multi-site sample of youth attending middle schools in high-risk urban neighborhoods. Exposure to adult IPV, two types of parenting practices (positive parenting/involvement, monitoring), and five types of ADV perpetration (threatening behaviors, verbal/ emotional abuse, relational abuse, physical abuse, and sexual abuse) were assessed at baseline and 5 month follow-up via youth report. Results indicate that positive parenting behaviors can serve to mitigate the potentially harmful effects of exposure to IPV, whereas exposure in the absence of positive parenting behaviors may even exacerbate the negative impact of such exposure. Specifically, for youth with a history of adult IPV exposure, higher levels of monitoring were associated with lower levels of threatening behavior perpetration, whereas lower levels of monitoring were associated with higher levels of perpetration. Similarly, higher levels of positive parenting/involvement were associated with lower levels of verbal/emotional and sexual abuse, whereas lower levels of positive parenting/involvement were associated with higher levels of perpetration.  Results highlight the important role that parents can play in mitigating the effects of exposure to adult IPV on subsequent ADV perpetration.