Mothers' reports of parenting in families of children with symptoms of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Relations to impression management

We investigated the relations between a tendency to respond in a socially desirable manner and mothers' reports of their parenting behaviors, and the influence of social desirability on the associations among parenting practices and mothers' and children's symptoms Forty-two mothers of 7 to 12 year old boys with symptoms of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) completed two self-report measures of parenting practices. In general, these reports demonstrate expected correlations with observations of mothers' behavior, and with mothers' reports of hyperactive-impulsive and oppositional child behaviors and reports of their own hostility and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms. Although mothers' reports on one of the parenting measures are related to scores on an impression management scale, the correlations between parenting reports and maternal and child symptomatology are essentially unaltered with impression management scores controlled. Results suggest that reports of parenting in mothers of children with ADHD symptoms are not unduly influenced by impression management, and are related to both maternal and child functioning. (C) 2004 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.