Some Perceptual Functions of Social Networks in Coercive Mother—Child Interactions

When prolonged and chronic disputes characterize a mother-child relationship, there is reason to be concerned about the child's future emotional adjustment. Such coercion traps seem to promote antisocial child behavior through unfortunate reinforcement contingencies comprising the angry and escalating arguments between mother and child. This paper explores the thesis that the mother's participation in such traps is influenced by social network stimuli reflecting the quality of life in her ecosystem. When that life is fraught with loneliness, harassment, and other crises within the network, the mother is apt to perceive her child-care arena as little different from the remainder of her ecosystem. As a result, she will be insensitive to her child's communications, and, therefore, the course of their interactions is bound to be unpredictable, chaotic, and conflictual. Clinical strategies for the remediation of mother-child coercion traps follow our elaboration of the maternal perception thesis and the importance of grassroots mutual help groups is discussed in terms of therapeutic maintenance possibilities.