Exploring the association between parenting stress and a child's exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)

Elizabeth Crouch, Elizabeth Radcliff, Monique Brown and Peiyin Hung

Children and Youth Services Review, 2019, vol. 102, issue C, 186-192

Abstract: Nearly half of U.S. children age 0–17 have been exposed to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), accounting for over 34 million of children nationwide. Parenting stress (negative feelings related to the demands of parenting) is a primary risk factor for child maltreatment and neglect; yet has been an overlooked factor for ACEs. Understanding the degree of parenting stress and its subsequent associations with ACEs will facilitate future designations of relevant interventions to keep children safe. We analyzed 2016 data from the National Survey of Children's Health to examine whether increased levels of parenting stress are associated with higher counts of ACEs among children. About 4.4% of caregivers reported “high parenting stress” and children living with them were three times more likely (OR: 3.05; 95% CI: 2.23–4.15) to experience four or more ACEs by the age of 18. Lowering parenting stress through parenting interventions could decrease the level of childhood trauma experienced by a child or may lessen one type of stress in a home where many other stressors exist.

Keywords: Parenting; Childhood trauma; Stress; Childhood adversity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740919303391
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:102:y:2019:i:c:p:186-192

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.05.019

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().