Caregiver insightfulness and young children’s violence exposure: testing a relational model of risk and resilience

ABSTRACT

This study employed a relational post-traumatic stress frame to explore the co-contribution of young children’s exposure to violence and caregiver insightfulness on child behavioral outcomes in a high-risk, non-referred sample of caregivers and preschoolers (n = 64; mean age 3.83 years, SD = .77). Caregiver insightfulness did not have a main effect on child outcomes but did moderate the relation between violence exposure and child behavior across all observed outcomes. Violence-exposed children with non-insightful caregivers demonstrated higher caregiver-rated internalizing and externalizing behaviors and observer-rated negative affect than all other groups. Among children not exposed to violence, insightfulness was not related to children’s behavior problems or negative affect, suggesting violence-specific processes. Though cross-sectional, results suggest that the effects of violence and caregiver insightfulness on child outcomes are contingent on one another and that caregiver insightfulness may play a protective role in contexts of violence.

Keywords:

• Insightfulness Assessment
• representation
• violence
• trauma
• parenting

Acknowledgments

We would also like to thank David Oppenheim, Nina Koren-Karie, and the caregivers and children who participated in this project.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Spencer Foundation, the Melissa Foundation, the University of Massachusetts Boston Graduate Student Assembly, the University of Massachusetts Boston Dean’s Office, and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development [grant number K12HD043451; to Sarah A.O. Gray].