Do parents agree about their infant's socioemotional adjustment?

Abstract

Parents serve as the primary informants about infant development, wherefore interparent agreement is essential for facilitating timely identification of children at risk. We studied interparent agreement about infant socioemotional adjustment among 323 mothers and fathers/co-parents of 11-month-old infants living in Denmark using The Ages & Stages Questionnaires®: Social-Emotional, Second Edition (ASQ®:SE-2). Agreement was assessed through correlation, mean differences, and agreement on different risk levels. We also examined predictors of agreement including child gender, duration of paternity leave, parental educational level, and parenting stress. Finally, interaction effects between parents’ educational levels and parenting stress were also examined. Results showed moderate correlations and a small mean difference between parents’ total scores, with mothers reporting better infant socioemotional adjustment than fathers. There were also significant differences in terms of placing the child at different risk levels, emphasizing the practical implications of interparent disagreement for screening purposes. Interparent disagreement was predicted by an interaction effect between parents’ levels of parenting stress. Results showed that when fathers/co-parents experience low levels of parenting stress, higher levels of parenting stress among mothers are associated with more disagreement. The study is limited as the sample primarily comprises parents of Danish origin with high educational levels.