Cognitive-Behavioral Approaches to Parenting Educaton

1. Cognitive-Behavioral Approaches to Parenting Educaton Carol L. Oster, Psy.D. December 2007

2. Three Parenting Styles • Authoritarian • Permissive/Lax • Authoritative (Baumrind, 1968)

3. Authoritarian Parenting • Parental Behavior • Make high demands for performance and compliance • Use more coercive methods of child management • Demonstrate low levels of warmth in relationship • Outcomes • Effective at gaining immediate compliance • Poor at developing long-term pro-social thinking, feeling and behaving • Reinforces power motives • Reinforces aggressive behavior • Sets up escalating coercive interaction cycles between parents and children Baumrind, 1968; Patterson, 1982; Stormshak, Bierman, McMahon, Lengua, et al., 2000

4. Permissive Parenting • Parental Behavior • Make relatively few demands for performance and compliance • Demonstrate warm and supportive relationships with children • Use persuasion and emotional appeals • May resort to coercive or power-assertion methods when these fail • Outcomes • Lower levels of competence, knowledge, confidence and self-control Baumrind, 1968; Cartwright-Hatton, McNally, White, & Verduyn, 205; Patterson, 1982

5. Authoritative Parenting • Parenting Behavior • Make high demands for performance • Describe clear expectations and limits • Ignore some misbehavior • Use natural and logical consequences • Have warm and supportive relationships with children • Use inductive or educational methods for changing children’s behavior • Outcomes • Increased competence, independence and confidence • Increased cooperation and self-control • Values-based decision-making Baumrind, 1968; Cartwright-Hatton, McNally, White & Verduyn, 2005; Patterson, 1982

6. Maladaptive Cognitions • Inaccurate perception of the child • Unrealistic expectations for age • Hostile attributions re: child’s behavior • Failure to consider situational variables • Low belief in efficacy of parental efforts • Over-predicting long-term negative consequences of child behavior

7. Maladaptive Emotional Responses • Intense negative affective response to child misbehavior • Frustration or anger over perceived lack of control over child • Inability to manage own affect • Family stress affecting parents’ affective regulation

8. Maladaptive Emotional Responses 2 • Arise from • maladaptive beliefs, • parental psychological problems, • substance abuse, • stress, poor modeling of self-control by their own parents, • etc. • Highly correlated with power assertion and child abuse Dix, 1991; Kashdan, et al., 2004

9. Maladaptive Parenting Behavior • Excessive use of power and coercion • Inconsistency • Limited problem-solving ability • Limited repertoire of response • Use of indirect or unclear commands • Allowing insufficient time for child response • Giving too many commands • Failure to monitor or excessive monitoring • Failure to reinforce pro-social behavior

10. Parenting Education History • Systematic Training in Effective Parenting (STEP) (Dinkmeyer, McKay, & Dinkmeyer, 1973) • Understanding likely goals of children’s behavior • Applying natural and logical consequences • Using descriptive praise to promote pro-social behavior and develop children’s competence and confidence • Using family meetings to promote democratic/ authoritative decision-making and teach problem-solving

11. Additional Parenting Programs • Parent Effectiveness Training (Gordon, 1970) • Added communication skills training • I-messages • Active listening: • I feel ____ when you ____ because _____ • Active Parenting (Popkin, 1983) • Introduced videotaped vignettes to demonstrate problematic and skillful parenting • Positive Parenting (U. Minn., 2004) • The Incredible Years (Webster-Stratton, 2006) • Triple-P (Sanders, et al. 2003)

12. Requirements for Group Leaders • Knowledge of child and adolescent physical, cognitive, emotional, and social develop • Understanding of and sensitivity to individual and group diversity • Respect for families and parents • Group leadership skills • Teaching ability • Common concerns or characteristics (parenting experience) • A consistent theoretical framework • Formal training in parenting education

13. Setting Considerations • Where are parents likely to be comfortable? • Convenience of location • Transportation • Child care during the meetings • Meeting times that fit parent schedules • Ways to connect to non-attending parents

14. Assessing Participants • Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 1991) • Identifies internalizing, externalizing, and other problems in children • Parenting Stress Index (Abidin, 1995) • Assesses level of parental satisfaction, efficacy and stress • Conflict Tactics Scale (Straus, Hamby, Finkelhor, Moor, & Runyon, 1998) • Determines level of verbal discussion, verbal aggression, hostile-indirect withdrawal, physical aggression and spanking between parents and between parent and child; calls attention to potential for child abuse

15. What to Assess • Appropriateness of parental expectations • Level of agreement between parents • Exact nature of parent-child problem • Precipitants and consequences • Discipline methods and domestic violence • Consistency of methods • Developmental functioning of children • Parents’ understanding of community standards • How normative or non-normative parents’ and child’s behavior is • Recent changes in family situation • Long-term stressors in family situation

16. Group Membership • Reasonably homogenous for • Developmental age of child of most concern • Common diagnostic issues • Presence of child abuse and neglect • Cultural values • Social values

17. Goals of Parenting Education • Improve knowledge of child development • Increase use of non-coercive methods • Increase focus on developing pro-social behavior • Develop alternatives to coercive methods • Improve parental self-control • Help identify, set and reinforce reasonable limits • Develop problem solving and conflict-resolution skills • Improve communication • Establish or improve social support and reduce stress

18. Best Practices • Use multiple modalities and activities • Incorporate cognition, emotion & behavior • Respect culture and history • Use short lectures • Provide clear examples • Anticipate child behavior • Directly model appropriate parenting • Use role play and interactive skill-building • Include discussion • Build connections • Provide other resources Matthews & Hudson, 2001, Shannon, n.d.

19. Session Structure • Check-in • Pre-learning activity • Didactic presentation • Videotape • Discussion • Skill building • Practice • Discussion • Planning application

20. Short and Long-Term Goals • Long-term examples • Increase child pro-social behavior • Have a warmer relationship with my child • Decrease family violence • Weekly (short-term) examples • Use descriptive encouragement to reinforce positive behavior • Spend time together enjoying something without teaching, controlling, or correcting my child

21. Make Explicit Plans for Behavioral Change • I will take time to figure out how to phrase my requests as “do” rather than “don’t” commands • When the problem belongs to my child, I will ask questions to help her think it through, rather than telling her what to do.

22. Keep Track • Counters mood-congruent recall of failed attempts • Counters “availability heuristic” of child’s most recent misbehavior • Focuses on parent cognition, behavior, emotion • Encourages self-reinforcement

23. Sequence of “Lessons” • Varies somewhat in response to group needs • Maximizes likelihood of early success • Emphasizes “do” rather than “stop” instructions • Begins with increasing pro-social behavior rather than diminishing problems • Usual length: 6 to 8 weeks • Topics may take more than one session • Topics need to be revisited and reinforced

24. Lesson 1: Improve knowledge of child development • Reduces personalization • Emphasizes parents’ role as teachers • Introduces and reinforces inductive parenting methods

25. Child development lesson, cont’d. • Child development handouts, videos • Compare own child to developmental characteristics and competencies • Identify parenting challenges associated with different ages/stages • Recalling selves at same age enhances empathy • Provide charts of intellectual, emotional, physical and social development

26. Successful parenting results in… • Competence • Confidence • Cooperation • Contribution • Compassion • Commitment

27. Lesson 2: Increase pro-social behavior • Identify desired behaviors • Reinforce positive behaviors • Use descriptive praise • Describe the child’s behavior in positive terms • Attribute a positive underlying characteristic to the child • Stable, internal, global positive attribute that you want to encourage in the child • Let the child own the positive behavior

28. 2b: Teach desired skills and knowledge • Break the skill into smaller steps • Give simple, clear, stepwise instructions • Model the target behavior • Reflect on the behavior as you model it • Explain the reason for the behavior • Provide time to practice • Reward progress • Attribute growth to child’s efforts • Help child to self-attribute and self-reward

29. 2c: Make clear, age-appropriate requests • Issue fewer commands and requests • Time commands to increase compliance • Direct the child’s attention • Describe what’s expected • Use directive statements • Allow time to comply • Reinforce compliance And develop a warm relationship

30. Lesson 3: Decrease negative emotional responding • 3a: Differentiate immature, noncompliant, and defiant behaviors • Teach skills • Ignore the error or non-compliance • Repeat request • Request at a different time

31. 3b: Challenge the general attribution error • Situational, time-limited, and environmental or external causes • Vs… global (cross-situational), internal, and enduring characteristics • Hold parents accountable for their own behavior while increasing their awareness of situational causes of child’s behavior • Teach parents to catch themselves in absolutes

32. 3d: Identify Goals and Adaptive Needs of Child Misbehavior

33. 3e: Improve behavioral self-control • Remove self from conflictual situations • Allow others to remove selves • Develop options for respite from child care • Time out for self-care • Retreat to another room • Get someone else to step in • Divide and share tasks • Schedule time off • Use community child care options

34. 3f: Improve Cognitive self-control • Practice coping statements • Take a future perspective • Find humor in the situation

35. Lesson 4: Decrease Child Misbehavior • Counter myths about efficacy of punishment • Use “do” commands rather than “don’t” commands, reinforce desirable behavior (DRO) • Reduce frequency of commands (reduce closeness of monitoring, focus on 1 thing) • Ignore some misbehavior (extinguishing) • Anticipate development (decatastrophize) • Use natural and logical consequences

36. 4f: Natural Consequences • Natural consequences occur as a result of child’s behavior if parents do not intervene • social consequences • physical consequences • emotional consequences • Cannot be used if natural consequences would endanger the child

37. 4f: Logical Consequences • Logical consequences are contingencies imposed by parents that would not otherwise occur • Clearly connected to misbehavior • Proportional to misbehavior • Time-limited (try again later) • Delivered in a calm and reasonable way

38. Lesson 5: Set Appropriate Limits • Establish boundaries for appropriate and acceptable behavior • Identify what’s out of bounds or misbehavior • Identify what’s “inbound” or acceptable • Identify appropriate limits • Within child’s developmental capabilities • Change as child grows • Affected by changes in society and technology

39. 5a: Identify appropriate limits • Collective knowledge of school policy, local laws, community consensus, pediatricians, religious and cultural groups • Family, cultural, religious, neighborhood values • Maladaptive values may be generationally transmitted • Make unspoken values explicit; question their adaptive value; communicate effectively • Recognize rights of others

40. 5b: Communicate limits effectively • Ahead of time if possible • Respectfully • As “do” vs. “don’t” directives • In clear behavioral terms • With embedded value statements or rationale • Taking into account child’s ability to comply • Teach prerequisite skills

41. Lesson 6: Problem Solving and Communication Skills • Using I messages • Active listening • Low level intervention • Stating personal limits • Sticking to one topic • Presenting a unified front • Deferring a heated conversation

42. Lesson 7: Self-Efficacy and Stress Management • Associate change with own efforts • Stress innoculation (Meichenbaum, 1985) • Inventory new knowledge, skills, attitudes, values • Identify resources for continued support and learning

43. Some Resources • Oster, C. L. (2007). Parent skill building groups. In R. Christner, J.L. Stewart & A. Freeman (Eds.) Cognitive-Behavioral Group Therapy with Children and Adolescents. (465-484) • Abidin, R.R. (1995) Parenting stress index. 3rd Ed. Odessa, FL. Psychological Assessment Resources • Achenbach, T.M. (1991) Manual for the child behavior checklist. Burlington: VT. U. of Vermont Press. • Dinkmeyer, D., McKay, G.D. & Dinkmeyer, D. (1973) Systematic training for effective parenting. Lebanon, IN: Pearson.

44. More Resources • Gordon, T. (2000). Parent effectiveness training: The proven program for raising responsible children. New York, NY: Crown. • Habisch-Ahlin, T. (1999). Positive discipline: A guide for parents. Minneapolis, MN: U. Minnesota/Regents of the U. Minn. Available at http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/familydevelopment/DE7461.html • Popkin, M. (2002). Active parenting now. Kennesaw, GA: Active Parenting Publishers

45. Still More Resources • Sanders, M.R., Markie-Dadds, C. & Turner, K.M.T. (2003). Theoretical, scientific, and clinical foundations of the Triple P positive parenting program: A population approach to the promotion of parenting competence. Parenting research and practice monograph no. 1. Brisbane, Australia: Families International Publishing. • Strauss, M.A., Hamby, S.L., Finkelhor, D., Moore, D.W., & Runyan, D. (1998). Conflict tactics scale. Durham, NH: Family Research Laboratory. • Webster-Stratton, C. (2006). The incredible years: A troubleshooting guide for parents of children aged 2-8. Seattle, WA: Umbrella Press.