The Social Mechanism Linking Inter-Parental and Parent-to-Child Physical Violence

This study aims to examine the link between various forms of inter-parental and parent-to-child physical violence as reported by 352 young adults who experienced it in childhood. It was found that: parent-to-child violence is more prevalent than inter-parental violence; most parents who batter their partners also beat their children; a minority of parents who batter their children beat their partners; most parents who exert severe violence forms in a given violence type also use milder ones; a minority of those using mild violence also exerts severe violence forms. The findings indicate that the chronicity of the various forms (mild and severe) of parent-to-child violence is higher in the group with inter-parental violence than in the parent-to-child violence only group.