The acute effect of community violent crime on maternal engagement in cognitive and socioemotional stimulation

Parental cognitive and socioemotional stimulation in early childhood is a strong predictor of children's skill development and future life success. At the same time, little work has examined the effect of environmental risk factors on parents’ engagement in stimulation practices. The present study estimates the acute effect of geocoded community violent crime on 491 Colombian mothers’ reported engagement in stimulating activities with their children younger than five. We exploit naturalistic exogenous variation in the timing and location of a violence incident relative to a mothers’ participation in a household survey to identify internally valid estimates. Findings show that mothers reduced their engagement in stimulating activities, on average, by 0.23–0.30 SD following an incident of violent crime in their residential neighborhoods. The estimated effect was larger for mothers living in the poorest neighborhoods and for mothers exposed to domestic violence. Implications for research on the effects of violence on children and their caregivers as well as for interventions at different ecological levels are discussed.