Listen, pay attention – the ingredients of good parenting

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A recent article in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology suggests that those purchasing parent education programs set about it blindly. They know that parent education programs generally help parents to improve children’s behaviour and overall adjustment and that some programs do a better job than others. What they don’t know is what makes the better programs, well, better? In other words, what are the active ingredients?

To answer this question, a group of US researchers analysed the results of a range of programs designed to enhance parenting skills.

 

• The research team found that the aspects of the programs most consistently associated with improvements in parenting and child behaviour were:
• Teaching parents emotional communication skills (such as active listening and reduction of criticism and sarcasm)
• Teaching parents to interact positively with children (such as showing enthusiasm and attention for good behaviour and letting the child take the lead in play activities)
• Teaching parents to discipline consistently (such as responding to a problem behaviour every time it occurs in the same fashion)
• Having parents practice new skills with their children in the parenting class.

 

Kaminski and her colleagues note that only one of these four program components has to do with discipline. The other three focus on skills needed to enhance the parent-child relationship in general. 

Further information on the report can be at www.preventionaction.org