Surveys the literature about any tools available for appraising parenting styles, parent-child interaction skills, and parents’ childrearing knowledge, and identifies those that are brief yet comprehensive, parent-sensitive, psychometrically sound, non-intrusive, and appropriate to child development. Even though parents ask for or need assistance in parenting, the appraisal of parenting not only is a formidable task, but also is ineffective if parents are blamed for their children’s problems, or if parental ethnic background and cultural beliefs are ignored. Clinicians and researchers get information about measures that have been peer reviewed and published in the clinical literature and also meet the criteria of brevity, ease of use, and external validity; can search the bibliography for topics such as parent-child interaction, parent perceptions, parent concerns, parental health and well-being, quality of parenting, child temperament and behavior, and child development and assessment; find guidance on the kinds of parental appraisal approaches that are most useful in pediatric clinic and office settings; and learn about the behavioral dimensions addressed by each measure as well as the demographics involved in testing and validation. These tools can help pediatricians recognize and respond to parents’ needs, whatever their origin, nature, or gravity.
