Moderators of Children’s Exposure to Community Violence: A Commentary

The 5 articles included in this special section are reviewed in this article. The studies encompassed were all focused on pre- or early adolescents, and samples were gener-ally from inner-city areas, with 1 involving rural youth. Considered collectively, the results point to 3 major conclusions: Many children in America are regularly exposed to violence in communities; such exposure carries risk for psychopathology; and par-ents and other adults can provide valuable support but are limited in how much they can offset the effects of ongoing violence exposure. Intervention implications are, foremost, that community violence itself must be reduced and, second, that positive relationships with significant adults should be fostered to the degree possible among children living in high-risk, violence-prone communities. The five articles on violence exposure within this special section reflect several strengths, including the focus on rural as well as urban children, the use of mul-tiple methods and respondents in assessments, and the exploration of diverse potentially protective processes, including different parenting domains and high per-ceived support from various people in the child’s life. Considered in tandem, the results of these studies point to a series of three major conclusions