The Batterer as Parent Address

The Batterer as Parent takes the reader inside of homes affected by domestic violence, imparting an understanding of the atmosphere that battering men create for the children who live with them. Bancroft and Silverman show how partner abuse affects each relationship in a family, and explains how children’s emotional recovery is inextricably linked to the healing and empowerment of their mothers. The authors cover the important but often-overlooked area of the post-separation parenting behaviors of men who batter, including their use of custody litigation as a tool of abuse. Readers also are guided in evaluating change in the parenting of men who batter, assessing risk to children from unsupervised visitation, and supporting the emotional recovery of children. Although the book is written primarily for professionals, its accessible style makes it engaging and useful for abused mothers and anyone else wishing to assist children exposed to battering. 

Jay Silverman is Professor of Medicine and Global Public Health at the University of California at San Diego. He is a developmental psychologist with 20 years of experience in domestic violence, including direct counseling experience with hundreds of men who batter. He has led multiple, large-scale international and domestic research programs on issues of gender-based violence against women and girls; this work has resulted in more than 100 peer-reviewed studies. His research has included examinations of the social contextual influences on the etiology of male-perpetrated partner violence, the nature and health consequences of adolescent dating violence, history of child abuse among men who perpetrate partner violence, judicial behavior and the experiences of battered mothers in child custody cases, the role of partner violence in men’s transmission of HIV to their female partners, the nature and HIV risks associated with trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation, and the roles of partner violence in unintended and teen pregnancy, coercion regarding abortion, pregnancy loss, and infant and child morbidity and mortality.

Lundy Bancroft has 14 years of counseling and clinical supervising experience in over 2,000 cases working with batterers. He also served extensively as a custody evaluator and child abuse investigator, appeared as an expert witness in child custody and welfare cases, and led groups for teenage boys exposed to domestic violence. He has been training judges, probation officers and other court personnel on men who batter and on battering’s effects on children. He co-authored articles in the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of Contemporary Psychology and is co-creator of two nationally marketed curricula, one for working with batterers and one for teen-dating violence in schools. In addition, he completed a study for the state of Massachusetts on approaches to meeting the service needs of children exposed to domestic violence.