Parents' and Teachers' Perceptions of Children in Counseling and Not in Counseling

Summary

This study compared parents' and teachers' Behavior Problem Checklist ratings of 57 children in counseling and 1,300 children not in counseling in a suburban school district. Analysis of variance using the General Linear Model revealed that youngsters in counseling were evaluated as exhibiting more deviant behavior. Duncan's multiple range tests indicated that parents tended to see more maladjustment than teachers. A number of interactions were found with teachers perceiving more socialized delinquency and psychotic signs than parents for the in-treatment group, in contrast to the not-in-treatment group. Correlations between parents and teachers were low to moderate with mother-father coefficients being higher than mother-teacher and father-teacher coefficients. Although a larger sample might have produced more significant results, the relationship between parents' and teachers' observations did not differ when those for youngsters in counseling and not in counseling were compared.