Interparental agreement on child behavior problems.

Interparental agreement on child behavior problems was studied by having parents in 137 families complete the Child Behavior Checklist for their children age 3-13. Interparental agreement on specific behavior problems was low. Mothers consistently reported more problem behavior than fathers, but parents did not show different levels of agreement for boys and girls. Discrepancies between parental reports of problem behavior, but not kappa scores, increased as the distress level of the family increased. Child Behavior Checklist items rated high for objectivity, observability, molecularity, disturbance, and social undesirability generally obtained higher levels of parental agreement than items rated low for these qualities. Some evidence indicated that items on the externalizing scale of the cheklist achieve higher agreement and are more objective, observable, and socially undesirable than items on the internalizing scale