The veridicality of children's reports of parenting: A review of factors contributing to parent–child discrepancies

Child informants routinely participate in forensic and social service investigations and are often a critical source of information. However, across research domains high levels of discrepancy between parents' reports and children's reports have been documented, which has led researchers to question children's abilities to provide accurate information about others' behavior. To date research examining parent–child discrepancies has focused on discrepancies in reports of child behavior. The aim of the present review is to examine children's abilities to provide veridical accounts of parental behaviors, drawing on developmental and clinical research to delineate factors likely to enhance or impede accuracy. Among the factors examined, age appears to have the strongest influence on the accuracy of children's reports in general. A clear distinction also emerged in the literature between children's abilities to report objective data versus information regarding abstract concepts. Although available evidence provides mixed support for the veridicality of children's reports of parenting, factors that influence children's accuracy have generally been overlooked. Namely, researchers have largely failed to discriminate between assessment of child-rearing behaviors and children's perceptions of those behaviors. The present review proposes that such failure likely accounts for a notable portion of parent–child discrepancies in reports of parenting.

Research highlights
► Mixed support for the veridicality of children's reports of parenting.
► Parent–child agreement is better for discrete, observable behaviors.
► Current methods of assessment may contribute to parent–child discrepancy.