Prenatal Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence and Socioemotional Competence in School-Age Children: A Longitudinal Study

Background: Despite growing research on the developmental effects of prenatal exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV), empirical evidence on children’s social outcomes during the school-age years remains limited. During this critical period of development, children are expected to engage in interactions with expanded ecologies and demonstrate socioemotional competence. Grounded in the ecobiodevelopmental theory, this study investigates the association between prenatal IPV exposure and children’s socioemotional competence at 9 years, considering parenting stress, neighborhood collective efficacy, maternal depressive symptoms, and continued experience of IPV postpartum at the 5-year follow-up as potential pathways.

Methods: Participants included 2,186 mother–child dyads (52% girls) from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCW). Socioemotional competence was measured using the teacher-reported Adaptive Social Behavior Inventory at child’s age 5 (α=.91). Prenatal IPV exposure was assessed through two maternal-report items at childbirth, capturing past-month physical and emotional IPV victimization, and one item at the 1-year postnatal follow-up assessing prenatal physical IPV experience, generating a composite score ranging from 0 (no exposure) to 3. At child’s age 5, mothers reported on parenting stress via the Parenting Stress Index–Short Form (α=.87); perceived neighborhood collective efficacy, defined as shared trust and mutual willingness among neighbors to intervene for the common good, using the Collective Efficacy Scale (α=.76); and maternal depressive symptoms using a dichotomous variable derived from the Composite International Diagnostic Interview–Short Form. Postnatal IPV exposure was assessed using an adapted version of the Conflict Tactics Scale for adults (α=.74). Structural equation modeling was conducted using Mplus v.7 to evaluate direct and indirect pathways from prenatal IPV exposure to children’s socioemotional competence, mediated by parenting stress, neighborhood collective efficacy, maternal depressive symptoms, and postnatal IPV exposure. Models controlled for child sex, maternal race/ethnicity, age, education, and household income. Indirect effects were assessed using bootstrapping methods to determine statistical significance.

Results: After adjusting for covariates, prenatal IPV exposure was associated with parenting stress at 5-year postpartum (β=.085, p<.001), which was associated with lower levels of children’s socioemotional competence at 9 years (β=-.178, p<.001), indicating a significant indirect association (β=-.019, p<.001). Prenatal IPV exposure was also associated with lower levels of perceived neighborhood collective efficacy (β=-.055, p=.008), which was associated with lower levels of children’s socioemotional competence (β=.068, p=.002); this indirect association was a trend level (β=-.004, p =.062). Although prenatal IPV exposure was associated with maternal depressive symptoms (β=.085, p<.001) and postnatal IPV exposure (β=.156, p<.001), the pathways to socioemotional competence were not significant.

Conclusions and Implications: The teratogenic effects of prenatal IPV on socioemotional functioning emerged during school age and operated through parenting stress and neighborhood collective efficacy. The significant pathway through parenting stress suggests that trauma-informed perinatal interventions that strengthen stress management and parenting strategies may help promote children’s socioemotional competence. The marginal role of neighborhood collective efficacy points to the potential value of fostering trust and closeness among neighbors to enhance children’s socioemotional resilience in the context of prenatal IPV exposure, a finding that warrants future validation.