Citation

Davidson-Arad B, Aram-Fichman R, Bashan-Paz M, Gingis R, Klein-Katz T. Child. Youth Serv. Rev. 2013; 35(12): 2040-2048.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.childyouth.2013.09.011

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Most of the scholarship on parents who abuse or neglect their children focuses on the parents' life difficulties and personal deficits. The present study focuses on their hope, a coping resource which has been found to contribute to better parenting. Relying on their own reports, it compares the levels and predictors of basic and family hope among two groups of maltreating parents: those whose children had been removed to alternative care and those whose children were being treated at community facilities. The examined correlates were two personality features, self-esteem and covert narcissism, and two interpersonal features, perceived social support and their closeness to and the influence of their own parents. A convenience sample of 279 maltreating parents in Israel, fairly evenly divided between the two groups, completed six self-report questionnaires. The findings show similarities in the features of the two groups of parents, and both similarities and differences in the correlates of their hope. Following descriptive analyses using t-tests, multi-group structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed to develop models of the predictors of hope in each of the groups and to examine the differences in the models. No significant group difference was found in any of the study variables. The mean levels of basic and family hope in both groups were soundly above the midpoint of the scale, and the mean levels of the other variables hovered around the middle of their respective scales. Social support and self-esteem were major correlates of the hope of both groups. However, covert narcissism and closeness to and influence of the mother correlated with hope only among parents whose children were removed from home.