All children deserve and have a right to be safe, loved, and receive proper care. Unfortunately, in the United States and Florida, that isn’t the reality for every child. The most recent data show that there were over half a million children suffering from child maltreatment in the United States, and over 22,000 in Florida alone.
While the recent trend has seen a decline in rates of child abuse, even one child suffering from abuse is to high. If we want to stamp out child abuse, it helps to understand what’s driving it. There are various factors associated with an increased risk for child maltreatment, but one worth investigating in more detail is parents who were victims of childhood abuse themselves.
The continuation of negative or abusive parenting from one generation to the next has been dubbed the “cycle of abuse” or intergenerational trauma. Being a past victim of childhood abuse by no means guarantees that a parent will be abusive towards their children, but it does increase the risk. This blog will explore the cycle of abuse and how parents can break it.
Understanding the Cycle of Abuse
As mentioned, the cycle of abuse–sometimes known as the circle of abuse or cycle of violence–is the perpetuation of maltreatment towards children across generations. It occurs when a person who was a victim of childhood maltreatment becomes a parent who then maltreats their child.
But what is childhood maltreatment, and is it different from abuse? The World Health Organization uses the term maltreatment to encompass both abuse and neglect, with abuse being the presence of negative behaviors and neglect being the absence of proper care. The following behaviors are included within the umbrella term of maltreatment:
- Physical abuse
- Emotional abuse
- Sexual abuse
- Neglect
- Exploitation
- Witnessing domestic violence or adult intimate partner violence
When these behaviors cause actual or potential harm to a child’s health, wellness, and survival, that is maltreatment. What this looks intergenerationally, in the cycle of abuse, may be a child who grows up in an environment where they were hit, begins to think they deserved to be hit, and then hits their children later in life.
Risk Factors for Child Abuse
While being a maltreated child puts a parent at risk of maltreating their children, it is not determinative. This means it is not a foregone conclusion that a maltreated child will grow up to become an abusive parent later in life. Instead, researchers find additional risk factors that are also associated with an increased risk of child maltreatment. These include:
- Being under 1 year old: Sadly in Florida, infants under 1 are the most at risk for child maltreatment. The overall incident rate is 5.2 maltreated children per 1,000 Florida children, but for children under 1 the incident rate is 15.4 per 1,000.
- Alcohol and Drug Abuse: When a caregiver regularly abuses drugs or alcohol, it puts children in their care at additional risk for maltreatment.
- Being a girl: Female children are at an increased risk of maltreatment compared to boys. In Florida, the incidence rate is 5.5 for girls compared to 4.8 for boys.
- Poverty and Poor Housing: Families experiencing poverty are associated with increased rates of maltreatment. In Florida, nearly 10% of victims were also living in inadequate housing, with cramped or unsafe conditions.
- Misunderstanding or ignorance of child development: Sometimes, parents have unrealistic expectations for how their children should be behaving at certain ages, which can lead to abusive disciplinary measures
- Rigid gender roles and other cultural norms: Broadly, societies that have rigid expectations for children’s behavior and gender roles can also result in harsh enforcement of those expectations and norms.
How to Break the Cycle of Abuse in Your Family: 5 Steps to Get Started
If you experienced childhood maltreatment, remember that perpetuating the cycle of abuse is not inevitable. You have the power to break the cycle of abuse. However, that does not mean that it’s something you need to attempt on your own. The opposite is true–breaking the cycle of abuse requires support. Here are five steps to help break the cycle of abuse:
- Reflect on past experiences: Try to recall instances where you may have experienced maltreatment, abuse or neglect. Do not feel as though you need to relive those experiences in as much detail as possible. These experiences can be painful and should be worked through with professional help.
- Consider starting a form of therapy: Consider working with a trauma-informed therapist to work through those past adverse childhood experiences and discover how they may be impacting your life at present. Also consider therapy even if you can’t think of childhood maltreatment, but are feeling anxious or depressed after having a child.
- Build a personal support group: Build a group of people working to support you as an individual, first and foremost. These can be other parents, lifelong friends, or family members who want to support you as an individual and promote your happiness and peace.
- Build a parental support group: In addition to a personal support group to help you with challenges in your life, it also helps to have an additional circle of support from people who are also parenting. This group can provide additional resources to help you parent. You can take turns giving each other a break or reduce your stress. Setting up play dates where you have an additional set of eyes watching over the children or making meals together can help you manage the rigors of parenting.
- Enroll in a parenting program: Get started in a program like Kid Inc’s Healthy Families or Healthy Start to learn about positive parenting techniques, learn what realistic expectations are for parents, and start developing the tools you need to be successful, healthy parents long into the future.
How Community Support Programs Help Families Break the Cycle of Violence
Accessing community support programs is one of the best ways to break the cycle of violence because they help parents learn what positive parenting behaviors look like. Parents who were themselves victims of childhood maltreatment may not even realize the extent of their maltreatment. The repetition of abusive behaviors increases the risk of perpetuating the cycle of abuse because that behavior becomes normalized.
KID Inc.’s Healthy Families program is one of our many family-strengthening services that help households develop the skills needed to create an environment where children can thrive. Our Healthy Families program, modeled on the Healthy Families Initiative, relies on an evidence-based, in-home method of care to promote positive parenting.
When parents learn how to best parent their children, it creates a safer environment for everyone. In one study, mothers enrolled in a Healthy Families program were more likely to use nonviolent discipline strategies more frequently than mothers who were not enrolled in that program.
Other evidence shows that parents enrolled in these programs implemented more safety practices, had a higher quality home environment, and reduced the chaos in their household. While it may be tempting to try to break the cycle of abuse single-handedly, the data show that community programs offer one of the best methods to achieve that goal.
Early Intervention Helps Prevent Intergenerational Abuse
While enrolling in community support programs is helpful, it can be even more beneficial the sooner you start. Getting involved in treatments when your child is younger can prevent maltreatment before it begins. When you consider how prevalent child abuse towards infants and children under two, the need to learn best parenting practices becomes clear.
Healing Trauma: Therapeutic Approaches to Stop the Cycle
You don’t have to wait for the child to be born before embarking on a program to learn better parenting techniques. If you were a victim of childhood maltreatment, getting mental health care before you become a parent will help you work through your past traumas and recognize when similar responses show up in your future parenting.
Continuing that care once your child arrives and as they grow can help you continue to learn what your child needs, and how you can best provide that. Through interventions like parent-child interactive therapy, you can discover how to respond and connect to your child and manage any challenging behaviors without resorting to maltreatment.
Join KID Inc. in Breaking the Cycle of Abuse
If you or a loved one was the victim of childhood maltreatment, you can break the cycle of abuse, but you don’t have to do it alone. Whether you already have a child, are expecting another, or are expecting your first, reach out to KID Inc. for support and guidance on breaking the cycle of abuse today.