Abstract
The play of young children has long been used clinically to understand children’s experiences and inner feelings. More recently, children’s play has been examined quantitatively to understand differences due to varying backgrounds, family relationships, etc. Forty preschool children (21 girls and 19 boys) aged 27 to 71 months from families with histories of domestic violence were observed using a play interview, The MacArthur Story Stem Battery, to determine if severity of violence, frequency of visitation with their previously violent fathers, and mother-child relationship functioning impacted how parents were represented in play. Overall, girls represented their parents more positively regardless of other family circumstances. Boys, especially those who did not visit regularly with their fathers, had negative representations of their mothers. Severity of violence did not predict negative parental representations in the sample.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alessandri, S. M. (1991). Play and social behaviors in maltreated preschoolers. Development and Psychopathology, 3, 191–205.
Axline, V. (1969). Play Therapy. New York: Ballantine Books.
Bauer, P. J., & Mandler, J. M. (1990). Remembering what happened next: Very young children’s recall of event sequences. In R. Fivush, & J. A. Hudson (Eds.), Knowing and remembering young children (pp. 9–29). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss, Vol. 1: Attachment. New York: Basic Books.
Bowlby, J. (1973). Attachment and loss, Vol. 2: Separation. New York: Basic Books.
Bretherton, I., Oppenheim, D., Buchsbaum, H., Emde, R., & The MacArthur Narrative Group. (1990). MacArthur story stem battery coding manual, Unpublished manual.
Betherton, I., Ridgeway, E., & Cassidy, J. (1990). Assessing internal working models of the attachement relationshiop. In M. T. Greenberg, D. Cicchetti, & E. M. Cummings (Eds.), Attachment in the preschool years: Theory, research, and intervention (pp. 273–308). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Clyman, R. B. (2003). Portrayals in maltreated children’s play narratives: Representations or emotion regulation? In R. N. Emde, D. P. Wolf, & D. Oppenheim (Eds.), Revealing the inner worlds of young children. The MacArthur Story Stem Battery and Parent-Child Narratives (pp. 201–221). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Cohen, D. J., et al. (1987). Analytic discussions with oedipal children. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 42, 59–84.
Cummings, E. M., & Davies, P. T. (1994). Children and marital conflict. New York: Guilford Press.
Davidson, J. R., & Foa, E. B. (1991). Diagnostic issues in posttraumatic stress disorder: Considerations for the DSM-IV. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 100, 346–355.
Dutton, M. A. (1992). Empowering and healing the battered woman: A model for assessment and intervention. New York: Springer.
Emde, R. N., Kubicek, L., & Oppenheim, D. (1997). Imaginative reality observed during early language development. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 78, 115–133.
Erikson, E. (1972). Play and development. New York, NY: Norton.
Fivush, R., Kuebli, J., & Clubb, P. A. (1992). The structure of events and event representations: A developmental analysis. Child Development, 63, 188–201.
Fraiberg, S., Adelson, E., & Shapiro, V. (1975) Ghosts in the Nursery: A Psychoanalytic Approach to the Problems of Impaired Infant-Mother Relationships. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 14, 1387–1422.
Freud, A. (1965). Normality and pathology in childhood. New York: Int. University Press.
Furstenberg, F. F. Jr., Morgan, S. P., & Allison, P. D. (1987). Paternal participation and children’s well-being. American Sociological Review, 52, 695–701.
Grych, J. H., Wachsmuth-Schlaefer, T., & Klockow. L. L. (2002). Interparental Aggression and Young Children’s Representations of Family Relationships. Journal of Family Psychology, 16, 259–272.
Hans, S. L., Bernstein, V. J., & Henson, L. G. (1999). The role of psychopathology in the parenting of drug-dependent women. Development and Psychopathology, 11, 957–977.
Holden, G. W., Stein, J. D., Ritchie, K. L., Harris, S. D. & Jouriles, E. N. (1998). Parenting behaviors and beliefs of battered women. In G. W. Holden, R. Geffner, & E. N. Jouriles (Eds.), Children Exposed to Marital Violence. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Johnston, J. R. & Campbell, L. E. (1993). Parent-child relationships in domestic violence families disputing custody. Family and Conciliation Courts Review, 31, 282–298.
Kashani, J. H., & Allan, W. D. (1998). The impact of family violence on children and adolescents. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Lieberman, A. F. & Van Horn, P. (1998). Attachment, Trauma, and Domestic Violence: Implications for child custody. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 7, 423–443.
Lieberman, Alicia F. (1997) Toddlers’ internalization of maternal attributions as a factor in quality of attachment. In L. Atkinson, & K. J. Zucker, (Eds.), Attachment and psychopathology (pp. 277–291).
Lieberman, A. F., Wieder, S., & Feinichel, E. (Eds.) (1997). DC: 0-3 Casebook, Zero to Three diagnostic classification manual of mental health and development disorders of infancy and early childhood. Washington, DC: Zero to Three/National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families.
Macfie, J., Toth, S. L., Rogosch, F. A., Robinson, J., Emde, R. N., & Cicchetti, D. (1999). Effect of maltreatment on preschoolers’ narrative representations of responses to relieve distress and of role reversal. Developmental Psychology, 35, 460–465.
Neubauer, P. B. (1987). The many meanings of play. Psychoanalytic Study of The Child, 42, 3–10.
Oppenheim, D., Emde, R. N., & Warren, S. (1997). Children’s narrative representations of mothers: Their development and association with child and mother adaptation. Developmental Psychology, 33, 284–294.
Oppenheim, D., & Waters, H. S. (1995). Narrative processes and attachment representation: Issues of development and assessment. In E. Waters, B. E. Vaughn, G. Posada, & K. Kondo-Ikemura (Eds.), Caregiving, cultural and cognitive perspectives on secure base behavior and working models. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 60(244), 197–233.
Peled, E. (1995). Children of battering men: Living in conflicts of loyalties and emotions. Paper presented at the 4th International Family Violence Research Conference, Durham, NH.
Piaget, J. (1945). Play, dreams, and imitation in childhood. New York, NY: Norton.
Robinson, J., Mantz-Simmons, L., Macfie, J., & MacArthur Narrative Working Group. (1992). The narrative coding manual. Unpublished Manuscript.
Sandler, J., Hansi, K., Tyson, R. (1980). The technique of child psychoanalysis: Discussions with Anna Freud. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Shamir, H. Schudlick, T. D., & Cummings, E. M. (2001). Martial conflict, parenting styles, and children’s representations of family relationships. Parenting: Science and Practice, 1, 123–151.
Sheeringa, M., & Zeanah, C. (1995). Symptom expression and trauma variables in children under 48 months of age. Infant Mental Health Journal, 16, 259–270.
Singer, D., Revenson, T. A Piaget primer: How a child thinks. (1978).
Solnit, Albert J. (1987). A psychoanalytic view of play. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 42,205–219.
Stern, D. (1985). The interpersonal world of the infant. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Stevens, J. (2002). Applied multivariate statistics for the social sciences (4th ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Stover, C. S., VanHorn, P., Turner, R., Cooper, B., Lieberman, A. F. (2003). The effects of father visitation on preschool aged witnesses of domestic violence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 18, 1149–1166.
Straus, M. A. (1990). New scoring methods for violence and new norms for the conflict tactics scales. In M. Straus, & R. Gelles (Eds.), Physical violence in american families: Risk factors and adaptations to Violence in 8, 145 Families (pp. 535–558). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Straus, M., Hamby, S. L., Boney-McCoy, S., Sugerman, D. B. (1996). The revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2). Journal of Family Issues, 17, 283–316.
Thompson, R. A. (2000). The legacy of early attachments. Child Development, 71, 145–152.
Toth, S. L., Cicchetti, D., Macfie, J., & Emde, R. N. (1997). Representations of self and other in narratives of neglected, physically abused, and sexually abused preschoolers. Development and Psychopathology, 9, 781–796.
Warren, S. L., Oppenheim, D., Emde, R. N. (1996). Can emotion and themes in children’s play predict behavior problems? Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 34, 1331–1337.
Waters, E., & Cummings, E. M. (2000). A secure base from which to explore relationships. Child Development, 71, 164–172.
Van der Kolk, B. (1997). Psychological trauma. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Stover, C.S., Van Horn, P. & Lieberman, A.F. Parental Representations in the Play of Preschool Aged Witnesses of Marital Violence. J Fam Viol 21, 417–424 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-006-9038-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-006-9038-y