Parent Education Programs and Child Abuse Prevention

The Scope of Child Abuse in the United States

Child abuse in the United States continues to occur at endemic levels. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2005), in 2002 state child protective services agencies received reports alleging the maltreatment of approximately 4.5 million children. Over half of these reports came from community professionals, and the remainder from family members, friends, relatives, or neighbors. In that same year, investigations by state child protective services agencies determined that an estimated 896,000 children were victims of abuse or neglect, equivalent to a rate of 12.3 per 1,000 children under 18 years old.

Victimization was highest among the youngest children, with 16 percent of victims being newborns to age three. Among the estimated 1,400 children who died of abuse and neglect, children under one year of age accounted for 41.2 percent of fatalities, and children under seven accounted for 87.9 percent, with 79 percent of cases involving a parent as the perpetrator. More recent reports have shown that children of soldiers deployed to Iraq are also suffering increased rates of abuse. The problem shows no signs of improvement.

Historical Context and Definition of Parent Education

As a result of these statistics, community organizations and state governments are placing greater emphasis on preventative measures. The State of Ohio, for example, has considered legislation that would require all parents to attend a child abuse prevention program before leaving the hospital with a newborn. This paper conducts a literature analysis of the different types of parent education programs and the results of studies conducted to date on the impact of parent education on lowering child abuse.

Parent education has been defined as "a systematic and conceptually based program intended to impart information, awareness and skills to the participants on aspects of parenting" (Fine, 1980, p. 5). The underlying premise of such education is that a parent who is properly prepared for the challenges associated with child-rearing is better able to manage increasing stress factors. Such programs have been developed since the 1980s, although their structure has evolved considerably over time.

Parent education is generally believed to offer benefit in two key ways: by increasing parents' understanding of child development and appropriate methods of child-rearing, decision-making, and home management; and by decreasing parental stress through access to social support networks.

Social Interactionist Models of Child Maltreatment

Parenting education can play a powerful role in preventing child abuse. Many parents who are at risk of abusing their children share similar characteristics — they are often young, have little social support, experience high levels of stress, and do not fully understand child development. Overall, they may lack reasonable expectations of what a child is and is not capable of doing at different life stages. In addition, media portrayals of parenting have often presented a skewed picture, contributing to false expectations and added stress when parents perceive their child's behavior as inappropriate.

Social interactionist models on the causes of child maltreatment, such as those proposed by Belsky (1980) and Wolfe (1994), emphasize the importance of studying child abuse and neglect within the broader context of the child, family, local community, and society. In these models, child abuse — especially neglect — appears to be a symptom of negative child-rearing behavior and poor quality of parent-child relationships. Parenting and child-rearing problems are assumed to stem from a parent's inability to manage child behavior in a nonviolent manner (Kelly, 1990). As a result, parent education in a variety of forms is becoming the primary approach for working with maltreating families to reduce the likelihood of child abuse and neglect (Chalk & King, 1998).