Identifying concerns of parents of young children.
A survey was conducted to ascertain parenting concerns and willingness to participate in parenting groups as a means of addressing concerns. Questionnaires were sent to 121 families with a child aged three years or under. Mothers and fathers were asked to complete separate questionnaires. Analysis of the 85 sets of questionnaires returned indicates that more mothers (51.8%) than fathers (24.9%) had at least five parental concerns. The top five concerns of mothers were "discipline", "childhood illness", "impatience with terrible two's and three's", "lack of time for myself and my child" and "whether or not the child should attend nursery school". Fathers ranked three of these concerns among the top five they expressed; "nursery school attendance" and "impatience" were not major concerns but "working and being a parent" and "whether the child was eating properly" were in the top group. Guilt about leaving the child concerned almost one-quarter of the mothers, but it was the least important concern of fathers. Discipline was the primary concern of both mothers and fathers whether or not they were first-time parents or had two or more children. Couples willing to participate in parenting groups (41%) identified more concerns than those couples of whom only the mother was interested (35%). These results could be used to develop parenting groups in a family practice setting.
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Mackenzie
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Evers
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