Purpose This paper examines parenting attitudes, beliefs and confidence in a racially diverse sample of high risk mothers (n =297) who had recently entered residential substance abuse treatment and had diagnosed co-occurring mental health problems as well as histories of exposure to trauma. In combination childhood maltreatment, maternal mental health problems and maternal substance abuse are believed to have particularly distressing effects on parenting attitudes and abilities. Two aims of the study were identified: 1) to examine the hypothesis that mothers with more severe histories of child maltreatment would be more likely to hold more abusive and harsher parenting attitudes and beliefs and 2) to examine the role of present maternal psychopathology (which has been linked with childhood maltreatment) to determine its effect on parenting and the likelihood of transmission of maltreatment.

Method: Baseline data from one site of a federally-funded study (Women with Co-occurring Disorders and Histories of Violence Study (WCDVS) was used to examine dimensions of parenting in mothers recently admitted to a residential substance abuse program. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to test a model that specified both direct and indirect relationships between childhood maltreatment, maternal psychopathology and parenting.

Results: Findings only partially confirmed our hypothesized model. Surprisingly, the path between childhood maltreatment and parenting attitudes was positive indicating that when controlling for maternal psychopathology, mothers with more severe histories of child maltreatment had more appropriate parenting attitudes, i.e., they had higher levels of empathy, more appropriate expectations, less role reversal and held less punitive beliefs regarding discipline. The path between childhood maltreatment and parenting confidence was negative as hypothesized. Importantly, the path between childhood maltreatment and maternal mental health symptoms was positive and that between maternal mental health symptoms and parenting attitudes and beliefs was negative indicating that childhood maltreatment has a deleterious impact on parenting only for mothers with present mental health problems particularly those with high hostility and depression problems.

Implications for Practice: Findings underscore both the importance and complexity of the relationship between childhood maltreatment and later parenting. The finding that mothers who possibly resolved or came to terms with their abusive history (i.e., they had no present mental health symptoms) and demonstrated positive parenting has important implications for researchers and practitioners. Specifically, research findings highlight the need for understanding factors associated with resilience in these mothers and how they may have overcome adversity specifically regarding parenting.