ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with definitional issues associated with child maltreatment. It discusses some predominant theoretical approaches and four domains of socioecological conceptualizations of parental maltreatment including parent factors, family and child characteristics, structural characteristics, and cultural factors. Caregiver mental health also has been implicated in impaired parenting practices and was assumed to be a robust etiological antecedent of child maltreatment. Multiple internal familial stressors may promote the risk of child abuse and neglect. The economic circumstances of families have been identified as one potential risk factor for child maltreatment. The chapter describes how parental physiological stress response system functioning and capacities associated with executive functions may have implications for the understanding of parental maltreatment. Neurobiological models of caregiving emphasize the involvement of multi-level processes, including physiological and neurocognitive domains, in determining parenting behaviors. Hyperactivity could suggest maltreating parents experience more subjective distress during challenging caregiving situations.
