At what point does a behavior become child abuse? A closer look at the chronicity of child maltreatment and culture

Abstract

Child abuse/maltreatment is an issue that faces many families in the United States. One element of debate regarding the lack of unity in defining child abuse, is the chronicity of the abusive behaviors, or the duration/frequency of child abuse within the life of a child. A major factor that affects chronicity is the culture/ethnicity of a person, as child-rearing behaviors have been found to differ between various cultures. The current study aims to answer three main research questions: how often does a behavior have occur for someone to perceive it as abusive, do ethnic differences exist when looking at the perceptions of different types of abuse, and what demographic characteristics are most associated with the perceptions of each category of abuse. I will examine how often each behavior must occur before it is perceived as child abuse; using an original survey of three types of abusive behaviors: physical, sexual, and psychological. Results indicate that for physical and sexual abuse, all behaviors had a majority percentage for the choice "Once"; while for psychological abuse, all but two behaviors had majority percentage for the response "Once". Findings also showed that the group differences for ethnicity were not significant across any of the abuse types. Lastly, results of a multilevel model using all variables showed that the most significant demographic factors for physical abuse ratings were ethnicity, gender, and previous experience of physical and sexual abuse; for sexual abuse ratings was gender; and for psychological abuse ratings were gender, ethnicity, and age.