Child abuse and unrealistic expectations: further validation of the parent opinion questionnaire.

Abstract

This second validation study of the Parent Opinion Questionnaire (POQ) compared the unrealistic expectations of child abusing mothers (n= 16) wit h mothers whose partners perpetrated the abuse (n = 14). This comparison provided a more stringent test of the POQ's validity in that it controlled for nonspecific factors associated with being in a family identified for child maltreatment. As expected, significantly greater unrealistic expectations of child behavior were found for abusing moth ers than for control mothers. A discriminan t function analysis showe d tha t the POQ correctly classified 83% of the subjects. This measure's clinical usefulness is discussed. Child abuse is a major social and psychological issue affecting large numbers of children each year. Despite the seriousness of the problem, the development of truly successful interventions with maltreating parents has remained elusive. Thi s failure has been partly due to the lack of empirically demonstrated target deficits against which treatment might be aimed (Azar, Fantuzzo, & Twentyman, 1984). Recently, researchers have begun to document specific behavioral and cognitive deficit areas relevant for treatment purposes. One such deficit that has long bee n suggested in the traditional clinical literature as playing an etiological role is tha t abusive parents have unrealistic expectations of their child's behavior (i.e., they overestimate their child's capabilities; Steele & Pollock, 1968). When the child fails to meet these inappropriate expectations, the parent is believed to become frustrated and aggress against the child. Unfortunately, studies attempting to substantiate these dysfunctional expectations have until recently either failed (Starr, 1980) or shown errors in both over- and underestimating children's capabilities (Twentyman & Plotkin, 1982). These studies, however, operationalized "unrealisti c expectations " b y assessin g parent' s knowledge of developmental milestones. Parenta l aggressio n frequently follows complex interpersonal events , not just the simple acts assesse d b y milestone questionnaire s (e.g. , the child's ability to sit up, walk, etc.). Using an instrument designed to measure unrealistic expectations in situations involving more complex chains of child behavior, the Parent Opinion Questionnaire (POQ), Azar, Robinson, Hekimian, and Twenty man (1984) showed that maltreating mothers expressed significantly higher levels of unrealistic expectations of children's behavior than did demographically matched control mothers. Although these data provided some support for the importance of this defici t area as a potential etiological factor in child abuse, the finding might have been biased. Normal families may differ in nonspecific ways from those in which one parent has been identified as abusive (e.g. , their ability to deal with bureaucratic agencies, resources, etc.), and these nonspecific factors may ac