Page 66 - Meeting with Children Manual

Section 5 P a ge | 64

PARENT READINESS SCALE

The Parent Readiness Scale is a 9 item 5-point scale for use for practitioners
working with divorcing parents.
The scale is a non-standardized tool intended to assist practitioners to identify
potential parent readiness to receive direct or indirect input from their children
related to the development of a parenting plan. The scale is designed to identify
ratings from low to high. Higher overall ratings may indicate a parent’s ability to
include his/her children as part of the planning process. Low scores may indicate a lack
of ability to include his/her children.

About the Scale Items:
The scale items were chosen with a number of relational concepts in mind including
factors related to:
 Individual abilities (including self-regulation),
 Parent/child relationship (attachment) and
 Parent/parent relationship (disengagement and other parent support).

The scale breaks down in the following ways: Items 1, 3 and 9 focus on the parent/child
relationship, items 2, 6 and 7 focus on each parent’s individual abilities, and items 4,
5, and 8 focus on the parent/parent relationship. Combined, the 9 factors make up
some of the reasons why a parent may have greater or lesser ability to receive their
child’s input either directly or indirectly. When meeting with parents individually or
together you will find a number of attitudes and beliefs represented in their
narratives. After listening carefully, you will find patterns that either support or do not
support the idea of safe and direct inclusion of their children.

The following includes some examples of what you may hear from a parent that would
suggest lower levels of readiness as related to each item.

ITEM 1 Parent Differentiation from the Child
Parent/child factor
• I know my child will tell you that he/she does not want to spend time with his/her
other parent
• My child tells me everything and he/she agrees with how hard it is to live with the
other parent
• The child is always relieved to be back in my care he/she has always been close to
me
• My child and I are very much a like and we like to do all of the same things. He/she
does not have anything in common with his/ her other parent
• I am the only safe parent, my child is afraid of his/her other parent
• He/she left “us” comments – or – using “we” when describing situations related
to the other parent such as “We are very uncomfortable when the other parent
comes to the door”

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