”Preschoolers' psychosocial problems: In the eyes of the beholder? Adding teacher characteristics as determinants of discrepant parent-teacher reports”.

The primary purpose of this study is to examine factors that come into play in parent-child carer (dis)agreement on children’s psychological problems. The study also examines what children child carers and parents primarily disagree about: whether these are children that are perceived as unruly or restless, or children that seem well-adapted.

The study shows that parents are more likely to see problems in their children’s behaviour than child carers. Particularly with regard to introverted behaviour, parents were more likely to consider the child’s behaviour as a problem. In cases in which the child carers assessed a child to have psychological problems, there was a correlation with the child carer’s relationship to the child, which in these cases often involved conflict. Compared to the parents, the child carers assessed girls’ behaviour as much less problematic than boys’.

This study is a cohort study of 732 four-year-old children in Trondheim in Norway, in which data has been collected to compare parents’ and child carers’ perceptions of children and to capture different factors in parents and child carers. The material was collected in connection with the children’s visits to child clinics together with their parents and through psychiatric interviews regarding the children’s mental condition, observations of the children and clinical tests. Moreover, parents filled out questionnaires about their child, and the parents’ level of stress and psychopathology were assessed. The child carers filled out a questionnaire about the child, in which they also stated their own level of education, experience and relationship to the child.

Berg-Nielsen, T.S., Solheim, E., Belsky, J. & Wichstrøm, L. (2011). ”Preschoolers' psychosocial problems: In the eyes of the beholder? Adding teacher characteristics as determinants of discrepant parent-teacher reports”. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev, 43, 393–413.