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11 J. Fam. Violence 1 (1996)

handle is hein.journals/jfamv11 and id is 1 raw text is: Journal of Family Violence, VoL 11, No. 1, 1996 Child Abuse Potential and Parenting Stress Within Maltreating Families E. Wayne Holden1 and Gerard A. Banez' This study examined the relationship between child abuse potential and parenting stress in mothers and fathers receiving services for child maltreatment. Significant differences were found between perpetrating and nonperpetrating parents. Nonperpetrating parents reported more problems with family, greater total parenting stress and child-related stress, and greater stress from child demandingness, adaptability, acceptability, and distractibility. No significant gender differences in child abuse potential and parenting stress were found. Aspects of parent related stress moderated the relationship between child related stress and abuse potential. Perceived stress from parenting sense of competence was isolated as a variable that significantly increased abuse potential at medium and high levels of child-related stress. KEY WORDS: child abuse potential; parenting stress; child maltreatment. INTRODUCTION The parental and familial context of child maltreatment is receiving increasing attention in the literature. This emphasis is consistent with emerging theoretical models of the development and maintenance of child maltreatment, which emphasize an understanding of the complex transac- tions between variables at multiple levels, including child and parent char- acteristics, parent-child interactions, marital and familial relationships, and broader ecological variables (Abidin, 1990b; Ammerman, 1990; Belsky, 1993; Hillson and Kuiper, 1994; Webster-Stratton, 1990). For example, in- vestigations of the parental and familial characteristics of maltreating fami- 'Department of Pediatrics, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21201. 1 0885-748/96/03000001$09.50/0 0 1996 Plenum Publishing Corporation