Motherhood among incest survivors

Linking childhood sexual abuse and abusive parenting: the mediating role of maternal anger

“…This outcome was unexpected considering that others (e.g., Banyard, 1997;Cohen, 1995) have found sexually abused mothers to be generally less skilled on a number of parenting dimensions and more likely to resolve parent-child conflict through physical means. The statistical similarity may reflect a lack of association between these variables (which would present a challenge to alternative mediational hypotheses involving deficits in parenting skills), or limitations in the means of assessing one or both constructs.…”

Parenting Characteristics of Women Reporting a History of Childhood Sexual Abuse

“…found that incest survivors saw themselves as less skilled (i.e., less controlled, organized, and consistent) as parents than did a group of comparison mothers. T. Cohen (1995) found that a history of CSA was associated with poorer parenting as assessed by the Parenting Skills Inventory (Nash & Morrison, 1984). In this study, mothers who had been sexually abused reported poorer parental functioning across several Parenting Skills Inventory subscales, including role support, role image, objectivity, expectations, rapport, communication, and limit setting.…”

Interpersonal functioning among women reporting a history of childhood sexual abuse: empirical findings and methodological issues

“…Cohen (1995) administered the Parenting Skills Inventory (PSI; Nash & Morrison, 1984) to a clinical sample of 26 Israeli CSA survivors and found that abused mothers performed more poorly than 28 nonabused mothers on all seven scales of the measure, particularly those assessing rolesupport, communication, and role image. Among low income mothers, a history of CSA has also been linked to negative perceptions of one's self as a parent, as well as greater use of physical punishment (Banyard, 1997).…”