How do parents judge their children's control strategies?

Children possess multiple behaviours which influence their parents. Fifteen years ago Pauls and Johann (1984) investigated the question "How do childr en control their parents?" On the basis of their data Pauls and Reicherts ( 1991) constructed a situation-orientated questionnaire assessing children's ability to control their parents. Collecting parallel data sets for childr en and parents is an important research aim when analysing parent-child-int eractions. Therefore, a complementary situation-orientated questionnaire fo r parents was developed and tested in a study comprising 371 children and 2 60 parents. A comparison of 260 child-parent-dyads showed a significant dif ference between children and parents, that is, parents described that their children used "active-constructive" patterns of control while the children themselves indicated to apply "problematic behaviour".