Predictive Value of Informant Discrepancies in Reports of Parenting: Relations to Early Adolescents’ Adjustment

Abstract

Research has demonstrated a lack of agreement between parent and child reports across a range of parent and child variables. These discrepancies hinder the interpretation of research findings as well as diagnostic and treatment decisions in clinical practice. The current study examined the hypothesis that discrepancies between parent and child reports of parenting can be useful as predictors of future child outcomes. The participants included 559 early adolescents and their primary caregivers (79% African American, 21% Caucasian). Both respondents provided information on parental nurturance, harsh discipline and inconsistent discipline. A year later, information of adolescents' internalizing problems, externalizing problems, and social competence was collected. Structural equation modeling revealed that parent-child discrepancies in parenting reports could be explained by a latent factor which was a significant predictor of child internalizing problems and social competence, but not of externalizing problems, after adjusting for initial internalizing and externalizing problems. The three models applied across gender and ethnicity.

The Relations among Measurements of Informant Discrepancies within a Multisite Trial of Treatments for Childhood Social Phobia

“…Reporting discrepancies on childhood social phobia symptoms Parent-child reporting discrepancies were assessed using standardized difference scores (SDS), consistent with current recommendations and practices (e.g., De Los Kazdin 2004, 2006b;Guion et al 2009;Owens et al 2007;Weems et al 2007;Weems et al, in press). Standardized difference scores were created by first converting each SPAIC total score into a z score and then subtracting the child's SPAIC z score from the parent's SPAIC z score (hereby referred to as SPAIC-Standardized Difference Scores [SPAIC-SDS]).…”

“…That is, raw difference and residual difference scores are often statistically redundant with the informants' ratings used to compute the scores. Further discussions of the mathematical properties of SDS can be found elsewhere (De Los Reyes and Kazdin 2004;Guion et al 2009;Owens et al 2007). …”

“…Third, discrepancies may indicate the development of poor child and family psychosocial outcomes. For instance, when a parent and child disagree in their reports of important behaviors (e.g., the child's behavior and emotional problems, parenting styles, and parent-child relationship quality), these disagreements predict negative outcomes including poorer treatment response, poor parental participation in the child's therapy, and increases in the child's behavioral and emotional problems (Ferdinand et al 2004;Guion et al 2009;Israel et al 2007;Panichelli-Mindel et al 2005;. In short, informant discrepancies occur often and have numerous implications for the assessment, development, and treatment of child psychopathology.…”

Introduction to the Special Issue: Discrepancies in Adolescent–Parent Perceptions of the Family and Adolescent Adjustment

“…Yet, this is often not the case: Correspondence levels between adolescents' and parents' reports of family functioning routinely hover in the low-to-moderate range. Indeed, this pattern manifests in assessments of a host of domains including adolescent-parent conflict (e.g., Gonzales et al 1996), inter-parental conflict (e.g., Epstein et al 2004), parenting behaviors (e.g., Guion et al 2009;Otterpohl and Wild 2015), parental monitoring (e.g., parental knowledge, adolescent disclosure, parental solicitation and control; Kerr and Stattin 2000), and adolescent-parent relationship quality (e.g., Pelton and Forehand 2001).…”

Efecto del ajuste socioemocional en el rendimiento y las competencias académicas en el contexto escolar: Estudio comparativo

“…En este sentido, se ha argumentado que los padres se ven expuestos al comportamiento de sus hijos durante mayores períodos de tiempo, y generalmente suelen tener una experiencia limitada con otros niños. En cambio, la experiencia que los profesores tienen con la conducta de los niños es mucho más restringida en el tiempo, aunque la pueden contrastar con un número mucho mayor y variado de comportamientos de otros niños de edad similar (De los Reyes, Henry, Tolan y Wakschlag, 2009;Drabick, Gadow y Lonely, 2008;Guion, Mrug y Windle, 2009;Hartley et al, 2011). En tercer lugar, las discrepancias entre padres y profesores suelen ser más acusadas en relación a los síntomas internalizantes y menores con los síntomas externalizantes (Berg-Nielsen, Solheim, Belsky y Wichstrom, 2011; Ferdinand, Hoogerheide, Van der Ende, Heigmens, Visser, Koot, Kasius et al, 2003).…”