Parenting behavior is a central determinant of childhood development and is thus deserving of more scientific attention. In the present article, we constructed an ultra-short scale for the assessment of parenting styles, the Parenting Scale 4 (PS-4). To this end, we analyzed large samples of parent–child dyads—one representative of the German general population (Sample 1), the other representative for the German federal state Lower Saxony (Sample 2). We applied an algorithm-based scale-shortening technique in Sample 1 and confirmed the resulting model in Sample 2, finding excellent model fit and—given the extreme brevity—acceptable reliability. Furthermore, we show that the model is invariant across parent and child genders. Correlations with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire remain virtually unchanged compared to a longer version of the Parenting Scale, which is evidence for the PS-4’s validity. Overall, the PS-4 can be recommended for the assessment of parenting behavior, particularly in large-scale surveys with time constraints.
Schmalbach et al. (Fri,) studied this question.