Development and Validation of the Paren...

Abstract: Social cognitive models of parenting consider the role of unrealistic parental expectations (UE) regarding children’s abilities and behaviors as antecedents to the occurrence of child abuse. However, existing self-report measures of UE yield inconsistent results, often failing to differentiate aggressive and non-aggressive parents, raising questions about their validity and utility in understanding maladaptive parenting. To address these concerns, we developed and tested a new measure of parental UE in two samples of parents. The first sample ( N = 179) was used to test the initial structure of the scale, while the second sample ( N = 249) was used to replicate the structure and examine the concurrent validity, criterion validity, and internal consistency of the new measure. The final scale demonstrated adequate internal consistency, criterion, and concurrent validity. More unrealistic expectations predicted unique variance in parental negative behavior after controlling for other related variables. The current study provides preliminary evidence for the reliability and validity of the Parental Expectations Scale (PES), discussing its utility in the clinical assessment of parents at risk for child abuse and in tailoring parenting interventions.