The goals of this study were first, to delineate the co-occurrence of parental severe physical aggression and verbal aggression toward clinic-referred adolescents, and second, to examine the interactive effects of parental severe physical aggression and verbal aggression on adolescent externalizing and internalizing behavior problems. This research involved 239 referrals of 11- to 18-year-old youth and their dual-parent families to a non-profit, private community mental health center in a semi-rural Midwest community. Multiple informants (i.e., adolescents and mothers) were used to assess parental aggression and adolescent behavior problems. More than half of clinic-referred adolescents (51%) experienced severe physical aggression and/or high verbal aggression from one or both parents. A pattern of interactive effects of mother-to-adolescent severe physical aggression and verbal aggression on adolescent behavior problems emerged, indicating that when severe physical aggression was present, mother-to-adolescent verbal aggression was positively associated with greater adolescent behavior problems whereas when severe physical aggression was not present, the links between verbal aggression and behavior problems was no longer significant. No interactive effects were found for father-to-adolescent severe physical aggression and verbal aggression on adolescent adjustment; however, higher father-to-adolescent verbal aggression was consistently linked to behavior problems above and beyond the influence of severe physical aggression. The results of this study should promote the practice of routinely assessing clinic-referred adolescents and their parents about their experiences of verbal aggression in addition to severe physical aggression and other forms of abuse.
Numerous studies using samples of preschool and school-age children, adolescents, and adults from the general population exist on parental use of physical aggression, ranging from relatively common acts of corporal punishment (e.g., spanking on the bottom) to rarer acts of severe physical aggression (e.g., hitting with fist; Miller-Perrin et al., 2009, Vissing et al., 1991 and Wolfner and Gelles, 1993). This maltreatment literature clearly indicates that higher rates of both severe physical aggression and verbal aggression negatively impact the psychosocial development of children into adulthood (Gross and Keller, 1992, Pears et al., 2008, Petrenko et al., 2012, Schneider et al., 2005, Shi, 2013 and Solomon and Serres, 1999). Violence and maltreatment between family members is also a key risk factor for behavior problems in adolescents (Cicchetti and Lynch, 1993, Osofsky, 2003, Patterson et al., 1992 and Straus, 1994), but research on risks of parental severe physical aggression and for teens’ psychological adjustment is scarce compared to other age groups. In particular, no empirical literature exists on the interactive effects of parents who hit and scream on behavior problems exhibited by adolescents referred for mental health services, despite that this population may be especially in need of intervention services aimed at family violence. The current study examines the co-occurrence of parents’ use of severe physical aggression and verbal aggression toward clinic-referred youth and linkages between parental severe physical aggression and verbal aggression and adolescent externalizing and internalizing behavior problems.
In 40% of our clinic-referred families, the mother or adolescent reported one or more instances of severe physical aggression by one or both parents. According to national data, the upper quartile (75th percentile and above) for scores on the CTS-PC verbal aggression scale begins at a raw score of 29 (Gallup Poll Organization, 1995); we used this cutscore to denote high parent-to-adolescent verbal aggression in our sample. Via this criterion, high verbal aggression was found in 33% of the clinic-referred families. The percentage of clinic-referred families involving the co-occurrence of severe physical aggression and high verbal aggression was 22% (n = 53), severe physical aggression and low verbal aggression was 18% (n = 42), no severe physical aggression and high verbal aggression was 11% (n = 27), and no severe physical aggression and low verbal aggression was 49% (n = 117). See Table 2. We used the classification of “high” and “low” levels for descriptive purposes only; subsequent regression analyses utilize continuous scores on the verbal aggression scale. Bivariate correlations between mothers’ and fathers’ severe physical aggression and verbal aggression and adolescent internalizing and externalizing are shown in Table 3.
