Relationships between peer violence and child to parent violence

Peer violence and child to parent violence are two current problems that have serious psychosocial consequences for both victims and perpetrators. Despite their incidence and severity during the adolescence, few studies have explored the possible relationships between both types of violence. Thus, the aim of the present study was to explore these relationships, comparing peer violence, both manifest (direct) and relational (indirect) aggressions, in adolescents with problems of child to parent violence and adolescents who do not exercise child to parent violence. 66 adolescents living in two juvenile re-education centers for reasons of child to parent violence and another 66 secondary school adolescents without problems of child parent violence participated in this study. Both samples were identical in their percentage of boys and girls (62.12% boys and 37.88% girls), and in their age range (14-18 years, M = 16.09, SD = 1.03). The results of this study showed that juvenile offenders from child to parent violence execute more violence towards peers, both manifest (direct) and relational (indirect), than adolescents without problems of child to parent violence. These data highlight that juvenile offenders with legal measures for child to parent violence may also have greater difficulties in their relationships with their peers, using more direct and indirect forms of violence to resolve interpersonal conflicts. The intervention programs aimed to these adolescents should also include among their objectives to prevent the violence in the relationships with their peers.