Dating, Relationship Quality, and Teen Dating Violence in Adolescence: The Role of Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence in Early Childhood

Background and Purpose: Exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) is increasingly being recognized and understood as a distinct form of child maltreatment. IPV-exposed children experience disproportionately greater cognitive, psychological, and emotional impairments when compared to their peers. As the definition of IPV expands to include other forms of violence (e.g., economic abuse), more longitudinal studies are needed to fully understand the scope of the effects of early childhood exposure to different forms of IPV. This study investigated whether exposure to IPV in early childhood affects adolescents’ dating, relationship quality, and teen dating violence (TDV) experiences through parenting behaviors and engagement in delinquency.

Methods: We analyzed longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) using multivariate regression. We applied logit regression to examine the effects of several covariates on dating activity at Year 15 (N=2510). Then, we applied ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and logit regression to investigate the effects of the covariates on relationship quality and TDV involvement for those adolescents who were in a dating relationship (N=685). Robustness tests were run to analyze how occurrence of each type of IPV exposure (physical, psychological, and economic) and how severity of each type may affect dating, relationship quality, and TDV involvement.

Results: Exposure to IPV had no significant effects on likelihood of being in a dating relationship at Year 15; however, models that tested exposure to various forms of IPV (i.e., physical, psychological, and economic) indicated that early childhood exposure to physical IPV was positively associated with greater likelihood of dating at age 15 (B=0.30; OR=1.35; p<0.05). Adolescents who engaged in early onset delinquency at age 9 were more likely to be in a dating relationship (OR=1.08). For adolescents who were in a dating relationship at the time of the survey, exposure to IPV was negatively associated with relationship quality (B=-0.04; p<0.05) and positively associated with partner abuse (B=0.05; p<0.01). Relationship quality worsened with severity of physical abuse (B=-0.12), economic abuse (B=-0.10), and total abuse (B=-0.04) (all p<0.05). Meanwhile any occurrence of exposure to either physical violence (B=0.24; p<0.01) or economic abuse (B=0.13; p<0.05) were positively associated with TDV.

Conclusions and Implications: Our study indicates that early onset delinquency and early childhood exposure to physical IPV are predictive of dating at age 15. While dating itself is not an inherently risky behavior, adolescents who have been exposed to IPV are more likely to experience poor quality dating relationships and TDV. According to our robustness tests, this is especially true of adolescents who have been exposed to physical or economic abuse. This study adds to existing literature on the long-term effects of childhood exposure to IPV. We provide evidence for the intergenerational transmission of IPV effects, whereby children of mothers with IPV experience may have parallel experiences of violence in their own dating relationships. This necessitates early screening and rigorous interventions to detect possible exposure to IPV and to mitigate later socioemotional and behavioral challenges. School-based programming is also recommended to educate adolescents on healthy relationships and communication skills.