PERCEPTIONS OF PARENTS - A MEASURE OF ADOLESCENTS FEELINGS ABOUT THEIR PARENTS

The majority of measures that assess the parent-child relationship are based on overt parental behavior. Given that a substantial percentage of youth do not have contact with their father, these measures often lead to missing data due to paternal absence. We describe a series of four studies that led to the development of the Perceptions of Parents (POP) measure, which can be completed by younger and older adolescent s even if they do not have contact with their mother or their father. The measure was found to be sound psychometrically. Two factors, posit ive affect and negative af feet, emerged for adolescents' perceptions of their mother and father. Scores on these factors were meaningfully related to adolescents' psychological adjustment. We discuss connectio ns between adolescents' perceptions of their parents and therapeutic i nterventions for adolescents who are psychologically distressed.