Persisting characteristics of parents of battered children.

To study the personality of mothers whose children had suffered from child abuse in the past, a group of 36 such mothers was compared with a control group of mothers matched for social class. There was no difference between the two groups in pregnancy experience, in general health or in the number of family problems they had. The mothers from the study group had higher expectations for their children and perceived their children as having more personality problems than did the control mothers. The study-group mothers were less likely to have been brought up by their own parents, had more negative feelings towards their fathers, and were more likely to have received help for an emotional disorder than the control mothers. On formal testing, they were more likely to have suspicious, assertive, and demanding personality characteristics. As the majority of abused children remain in their natural families, these maternal factors are likely to influence the emotional development of their children. The children, as well as the parents, from families where child abuse has occurred should receive long-term supportive treatment to try to ameliorate some of the effects of these parental characteristics.