Parental deviance, parent-child bonding, child abuse, and child sexual aggression

Abstract

Structural equation modeling was used to test a theoretical model of the etiology of the deviant sexual aggression by adolescents. The subjects were 117 juvenile male sexual offenders who had been referred from either criminal justice or social service agencies to a clinic that treated offenders. The tested theoretical model included several family factors: parental deviance, child physical and sexual abuse history, and children's bonding to their parents. The model as a whole fitted the data very well. As for the specific hypotheses in the model, physical abuse by the father and sexual abuse by males were found to increase sexual aggression by adolescents. Also, children's bonding to their mother was found to decrease their sexual aggression. These results are explained from the social learning perspective and parent-child attachment or social control perspective. Further, the directions for the future research are suggested.