Parental Concerns About Their Children

Abstract

Parental concerns about their children as expressed to child development specialists in a private pediatric office are described. In general, the most frequent concerns are negative behaviors, toileting, developmental delays, and school problems. In addition, parents of boys have more concerns than parents of girls and the 1–5 age bracket (especially ages 2–3)is the source of the largest percentage of calls about children of both sexes. The implications of these data for training parent educators and also understanding normal development are discussed. It appears that those engaged in parent education programs should have broad training in multidisciplinary settings. Finally, it is suggested that similar studies in other settings be undertaken and that the training of pediatric psychologists as well as other child development specialists be more closely based upon the kinds of questions they will be asked in their professional settings.