Correspondence among informants on parenting: preschool children, mothers, and observers.

The authors examined the correspondence among preschool children's, mothers', and observers' descriptions of parenting in the mother-child relationship along 3 dimensions (structure, warmth-responsiveness, and hostility). Ninety-four children (mean age = 5 years, 3 months) and their mothers, who represent diverse ethnic and socioeconomic groups, participated in the project. Preschool children were interviewed about their mothers' parenting by means of a developmentally sensitive, age-appropriate research tool for assessing the subjective experience of preschool children. Mothers responded to a self-report measure on their own parenting, and observers rated mothers' parenting behavior during a series of interaction tasks designed to elicit the relevant dimensions of parenting. Results indicated significantly greater correspondence between observer and child report of parenting than that between mother and child and mother and observer reports. Explanations for the inconsistencies among informants and implications of this finding are discussed.

Toward a developmental family therapy: the clinical utility of research on adolescence.

Tremendous advances have been made in our understanding of the intrapersonal, interpersonal, familial, and contextual characteristics and processes that contribute to adaptive as well as maladaptive developmental outcomes with high-risk and clinically referred adolescents. This empirical knowledge base offers clinically rich opportunities for systematic treatment development. An important step in this process is distinguishing which research findings in basic science areas such as developmental psychology and developmental psychopathology might have clinical relevance. Toward this goal, we review relevant but selective research in areas that are central to clinical work with adolescents (parent-adolescent relationship, biological aspects, and affect and cognition), and we offer examples of how basic research in these areas can inform treatment.