This paper has reviewed knowledge to date on parental antecedents of "creativity" or divergent thinking in children, and reports discussion of this material by participants at an invitational conference. Methods of establishing criterion measures for assessment of "creativity" consist, at the present time, of the following: (1) judgments by peers or experts; (2) test procedures purporting to measure creativity; and (3) tests for personality characteristics thought necessary to creativity. Both the latter types of tests are shaky in terms of validity criteria. Available methods for assessing parental behaviors in the child-rearing process were also reviewed. Problems here include the fact that naturalistic, as compared to experimental, research is commonly and probably necessarily employed. This means that the direction of influence--parent to child or child to parent--is generally unclear. Interaction situations may standardize to a certain extent the natural situation, but precise definition of the causal effect is still a problem. The following parent variables appear with regularity as associated with child divergent thinking: (1) support, satisfaction with self and with child; (2) low degree of punishment; (3) low pressure for conformity; and (4) lack of intrusiveness. (Author)