Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T18:14:43.689Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Violent communities, family choices, and children's chances: An algorithm for improving the odds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2009

John E. Richters  and
Pedro E. Martinez
John E. Richters*
Affiliation:
Child and Adolescent Disorders Research Branch, National Institute of Mental Health
Pedro E. Martinez
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Developmental Psychology, National Institute of Mental Health
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: John Richters, Child and Adolescent Disorders Research Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, 5600 Fishers Lane, Room 18–C17, Rockville, MD 20857.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Data are presented concerning the early predictors of adaptational success and failure among 72 children attending their 1st years of elementary school in a violent Washington, D.C., neighborhood. Adaptational failures were defined as those children who were doing poorly or failing in school and rated by their parents as suffering clinically significant levels of behavior problems. Adaptational successes were defined as children whose performance as students was rated in the average to excellent range and whose parent-rated levels of behavior problems were within the normal range. Despite the fact that these children were being raised in violent neighborhoods, had been exposed to relatively high levels of violence in the community, and were experiencing associated distress symptoms, community violence exposure levels were not predictive of adaptational failure or success. Instead, adaptational status was systematically related to characteristics of the children's homes. More specifically, the children's chances of adaptational failure rose dramatically as a function of living in unstable and/or unsafe homes. Moreover, it was not the mere accumulation of environmental adversities that gave rise to adaptational failure in these children. Rather, it was only when such adversities contaminated or eroded the stability and/or safety levels of the children's homes that the odds of their adaptational failure increased. We argue that this erosion of the quality of the child's microsystem (i.e., family) by adversities and pressures in the exosystem (i.e., community) is not an inevitable process. Although not yet well understood, it is a process over which families have and must exercise control. The implications of these data for improving children's chances of physical, psychological, and academic survival in violent neighborhoods are considered.

Type
Research Article
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , Fall 1993 , pp. 609 - 627
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aber, J. L., & Zigler, E. (1981). Developmental considerations in defining child maltreatment. In Rizley, R. & Cicchetti, D. (Eds.), Developmental perspectives in child maltreatment: New directions for child development (pp. 1–29). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Achenbach, T. M., & Edelbrock, C. S. (1983). Manual for the Child Behavior Checklist and Revised Behavior Profile. Burlington: Department of Psychiatry, University of Vermont.Google Scholar
Barnett, D., Manly, J. T., & Cicchetti, D. (1993). Defining child maltreatment: The interface between policy and research. In Cicchetti, D. & Toth, S. L. (Eds.), Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Bell, C. C., & Jenkins, E. J. (1993). Community violence and children on Chicago's Southside. Psychiatry, 56, 46–54.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Belsky, J. (1980). Child maltreatment: An ecological integration. American Psychologist, 35, 320–335.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). Toward an experimental ecology of human development. American Psychologist, 32, 513–531.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christoffel, K. K. (1990). Violent death and injury in US children and adolescents. American Journal of Disease Control, 144, 697–706.Google ScholarPubMed
Cicchetti, D. (1984). The emergence of developmental psychopathology. Child Development, 55, 1–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cicchetti, D. (1989). Developmental psychopathology: Some thoughts on its evolution. Development and Psychopathology, 1, 1–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cicchetti, D. (1990). A historical perspective on the discipline of developmental psychopathology. In Rolf, J., Masten, A. S., Cicchetti, D., Nuechterlein, K. H., & Weintraub, S. (Eds.), Risk and protective factors in the development of psychopathology (pp. 2–28). New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cicchetti, D. (Ed.). (1991). Defining psychological maltreatment [Special issue]. Development and Psychopathology, 3 (1).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cicchetti, D., & Carlson, V. (Eds.). (1989). Child maltreatment: Theory and research on the causes and consequences of chid abuse and neglect. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cicchetti, D., & Lynch, M. (1993). Toward an ecologi-cal/transactional model of community violence and child maltreatment: Consequences for children's development. Psychiatry, 56, 96–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cicchetti, D., & Rizley, R. (1981). Developmental perspectives on the etiology, intergenerational transmission and sequela of child maltreatment. In Rizley, R. & Cicchetti, D. (Eds.), New directions for child development (pp. 31–56). Washington, DC: Josey-Bass.Google Scholar
Cicchetti, D., & Toth, S. L. (Eds.). (1993). Advances in applied developmental psychology. Vol.8. Child abuse, child development, and social policy. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
deMause, L. (Ed.). (1974). The history of childhood. New York: Psychohistory Press.Google Scholar
Festinger, T. (1983). No one ever asked us. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Fingerhut, L. A., & Kleinman, J. C. (1990). International and interstate comparisons of homicide among young males. Journal of the American Medical Association, 263, 3292–3295.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fitzpatrick, K. M., & Boldizar, J. P. (1993). The prevalence and consequences of exposure to violence among African-American youth. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 32, 424–430.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Garbarino, J., & Gilliam, G. (1980). Understanding abusive families. New York: Lexington Press.Google Scholar
Garmezy, N. (1985). Stress-resistant children: The search for protective factors. In Stevenson, J. E. (Ed.), Recent research in developmental psychopathology (pp. 213–233). Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Garmezy, N. (1991). Resiliency and vulnerability to adverse developmental outcomes associated with poverty. American Behavioral Scientist, 34, 416–430.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garmezy, N. (1993). Children in poverty: Resilience despite risk. Psychiatry, 56, 127–136.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Garmezy, N., & Masten, A. S. (in press). Chronic adversities. In Rutter, M. & Hersov, L. (Eds.), Child and adolescent psychiatry: Modern approaches (3rd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications.Google Scholar
Garmezy, N., & Rutter, M. (1985). Acute reactions to stress. In Rutter, M. & Hersov, L. (Eds.), Child and adolescent psychiatry: Modern approaches (2nd ed., pp. 152–176). Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications.Google Scholar
Hetherington, E. M. (1989). Coping with family transitions: Winners, losers, and survivors. Child Development, 60, 1–14.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hetherington, E. M., Cox, M., & Cox, R. (1985). Long-term effects of divorce and remarriage on the adjustment of children. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 24, 518–530.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Martinez, P. E., & Richters, J. E. (1993). The NIMH Community Violence Project: II. Children's distress symptoms associated with violence exposure. Psychiatry, 56, 22–35.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
National Academy of Science. (1993). Understanding child abuse and neglect. Washington, DC: Author.Google Scholar
Putnam, F. (in press). Dissociation and disturbances of self. In Cicchetti, D. & Toth, S. L. (Eds.), Rochester Symposium on Development and Psychopathology: Vol. 5. Disorders and dysfunctions of the self. New York: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Pynoos, R. S. (1993). Traumatic stress and developmental psychopathology in children and adolescents. In Oldham, J. M., Riba, M. B., & Tasman, A. (Eds.), Review of psychiatry (Vol. 12, pp. 205–238). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press.Google Scholar
Pynoos, R. S., Frederick, C., Nader, K., Arroyo, W., Steinberg, A., Eth, S., Nunez, F., & Fairbanks, L. (1987). Life threat and posttraumatic stress in school-age children. Archives of General Psychiatry, 44, 1057–1063.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reiss, D., Richters, J. E., Radke-Yarrow, M., & Scharff, D. (Eds.). (1993). Violence and children. New York: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Richters, J. E. (1993). Community violence and children's development: Toward a research agenda for the 1990's. Psychiatry, 56, 3–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richters, J. E., & Martinez, P. (1990). Things I Have Seen and Heard: A structured interview for assessing young children's violence exposure. Rockville, MD: National Institute of Mental Health.Google Scholar
Richters, J. E., & Martinez, P. E. (1993). The NIMH Community Violence Project: I. Children as victims of and witnesses to violence. Psychiatry, 56, 7–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Richters, J. E., Martinez, P., & Valla, J.-P. (1990). Levonn: A cartoon-based structural interview for assessing young children's distress symptoms. Rockville, MD: National Institute of Mental Health.Google Scholar
Richters, J. E., & Saltzman, W. (1990). Survey of children's exposure to community violence: Parent report. Rockville, MD: National Institute of Mental Health.Google Scholar
Richters, J. E., & Weintraub, S. (1990). Beyond diathesis: Toward an understanding of high risk environments. In Rolf, J., Masten, A. S., Cicchetti, D., Nuechterlein, K. G., & Weintraub, S. (Eds.), Risk and protective factors in the development of psychopathology (pp. 67–96). New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rolf, J., Masten, A. S., Cicchetti, D., Nuechterlein, K. H., & Weintraub, S. (Eds.). (1990). Risk and protective factors in the development of psychopathology. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rutter, M. (1979). Protective factors in children's responses to stress and disadvantage. In Kent, M. W. and Rolf, J. E. (Eds.), Primary prevention of psy-chopathology, Vol. 3: Social competence in children (pp. 49–74). Vermont: University Press of New England.Google Scholar
Sattler, J. M. (1970). Racial “experimenter effects” in experimentation, testing, interviewing, and psychotherapy. Psychological Bulletin, 73, 137–160.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Straus, M. A. (1979). Measuring intrafamily conflict and violence: The Conflict Tactics (CT) Scales. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 41, 75–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Straus, M. A., & Gelles, R. J. (1990). Physical violence in American families: Risk factors and adaptations to violence in 8, 145 families. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Tuan, Y.-F. (1979). Landscapes of fear. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Valla, J.-P. (1989). Dominique: A cartoon interview for assessing young children's psychiatric symptoms. Montreal: University of Montreal.Google Scholar
Werner, E. E. (1989). High risk children in young adulthood: A longitudinal study from birth to 32 years. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 59, 72–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Werner, E. E., & Smith, R. S. (1982). Vulnerability but invincible: A study of resilient children. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Werner, E. E., & Smith, R. S. (1992). Overcoming the odds. New York: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Werthamer-Larsson, L., Kellam, S. K., Dolan, L., Brown, C. H., & Wheeler, L. (1990). The epidemiology of maladaptive behavior in first grade children. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University, School of Public Health.Google Scholar