Behavioral observations of parenting in battered women.

The current study assessed observational data of parenting in 95 battered women and their school-aged children's behavioral adjustment and analyzed them within an ecological framework. Results indicated that maternal experience of psychological and physical abuse predicts maternal warmth, but not maternal authority-control, over and above ontogenic and exosystemic factors. In addition, maternal experience of psychological abuse and maternal authority-control predicted children's observed behavior, over and above child characteristics. An ecological framework for understanding the effects of domestic violence on parenting was supported.