Background As often only parents are addressed, studying parent‐child agreement and its explanatory factors is crucial in gaining accurate information on young children's emotional problems. Method Parental and children's reports of children's emotional problems (anger, anxiety, sadness) and children's reports of life events were gathered between February and June, 2010 from 464 Belgian nonclinical children 5–10 years old. Results Children reported more emotional problems than their parents. Parental underestimation was higher in the case of girls, older children, nontraditional family structures and authoritative parenting style. Furthermore, life events and emotional problems were significantly correlated only when using children's reported emotions. Conclusions In our nonclinical children, interviewing both parents and children on children's emotional problems is necessary and parent‐child disagreement can partially be explained by child or family characteristics.