Parent training is a widely used intervention for children with behavior problems.

Unlike
other child treatments, therapists who conduct parent training work directly with the parent to
improve a child's functioning. It is assumed that by changing ineffective or maladaptive
parenting practices, practitioners can indirectly help child clients.
Parent training began in the early 1960s as an attempt to teach parents the kind of behavior
change techniques that professionals and paraprofessionals were using in schools, clinics, and
hospitals. The assumption was that parents could alter controlling stimuli in the home in the
same way that a trained behavior modifier might reengineer behavioral contingencies in a
school classroom or a residential treatment facility. Because an important goal in parent
training is for parents to learn ways to manage their child's misbehavior, this therapeutic
strategy is also known as behavior management training or parent management training.

Common Features
A single, uniform approach to parent training does not exist, but most programs share a
number of common features. Many of these features were first derived by Constance Hanf
and later codified and empirically evaluated by Rex Forehand and Robert McMahon. The
training usually follows an initial assessment and an opportunity to convey to parents a
conceptual overview of the goals, process, and methods of parent training. As with other skillbuilding strategies, parent trainers use a combination of instruction, modeling, rehearsal,
coaching, feedback, and homework to enhance parents' skills. Somewhat unique to parent
training is the use of a bug-in-the-ear listening device to augment in-the-moment coaching.
With this device, therapists can suggest responses, give reminders, and offer encouragement,
all while the parents are interacting with their child. This kind of device has also been used to
assess children's level of compliance: Therapists deliver a series of clearly worded commands
to parents via the bug-in-the-ear, and these commands are then repeated aloud to the child.
This procedure controls for the quality of parents' commands and allows for a more valid
assessment of children's willingness to comply with simple, direct command.
The content of most parenting training programs includes two general sets of parenting
techniques. One set is designed to increase the rate at which children perform behaviors that
parents deem appropriate and desirable. These techniques are based on the principle of
positive reinforcement and include social reinforcement (e.g., praise, play, affection,
attention), material rewards, and token economies. A second set of techniques is designed to
decrease the likelihood that children will perform behaviors that are judged inappropriate or
undesirable. Techniques designed to lower the rate of misbehavior include issuing clear
commands, withdrawing social attention, taking away privileges, placing children in less
reinforcing environments (i.e., time-out), and presenting children with aversive, punishing
consequences.
Another common feature among parent training programs is the sequence of training.
Typically, parents learn to use accelerative, reinforcement-based techniques before learning to
use decelerating, punishment-based techniques. The first phase of training is sometimes
referred to as child-directed interaction (CDI) or the child's game. The labels reflect the fact
that the parent-child play sessions serve as the context for learning this first set of behavior
management skills. Parents are trained to follow their child's lead during play and to attend to
and contingently praise their child for appropriate behavior. Parents also learn to ignore their
child's display of minor misbehaviors. The skills of contingent reinforcement are often
extended beyond play to situations where the child's use of appropriate behavior is perhaps

infrequent or inadequate. Sheila Eyberg and other proponents of parent-child interaction

therapy (PCIT) have expanded this phase of training to ensure its equal emphasis with parent
discipline and to highlight the importance of the affective quality of the parent-child
relationship.
The second phase of training has been labeled parent-directed interaction (PDI) or the parent's
game. Here parents learn to shift to a more controlling position in the dyad, signaling that
shift both verbally and nonverbally. Parents learn to make eye contact, to use a firm voice, and
to state clearly worded commands (Marcus, brush your teeth now). The authoritative use of
commands is meant to replace vaguely worded instructions or tentative suggestions/questions
that invite noncompliance from difficult children (Marcus, don't you want to brush your teeth
now?). Parents also learn how to respond when children fail to comply with these commands
or are engaging in other types of misbehavior. The recommended parental response might
vary with the age of the child, but common to all programs is an emphasis on following
through with stated commands and parents' use of nonviolent discipline. Some programs also
train parents to warn children of the consequences that will follow if they fail to follow
parents' requests. If that happens or if children commit acts that cannot be ignored (e.g.,
dangerous acts, aggressive behaviors), parents are then expected to impose swift, salient
consequences.
The two most commonly recommended sanctions are time-out and response cost. Time-out,
also known technically as time-out from reinforcement, involves removing children from a
reinforcement-rich setting and placing them in a setting that offers little or no reinforcement.
(Some parents confuse this procedure with the notion of children taking a time-out if upset or
out of control.) Response cost refers to the fact that children's misbehavior essentially costs
them something of value for a limited period of time. Typically, what is lost is a routine
privilege (e.g., use of the phone), a prized possession (e.g., favorite video game), or an
anticipated event (friend's party). Most parent training programs provide strict guidelines for
how to administer time-out. These guidelines are meant to prevent the misapplication of timeoutan effective but sometimes demanding procedure to use. Commonly voiced
recommendations are that (a) timeout last 1 minute for each year of the child's age, (b) the
time-out area should be fairly devoid of reinforcement, and (c) parents not interact with
children during time-out. Parents are also warned to expect strong protests from children
when first using time-out (i.e., extinction bursts) and to be prepared to use additional
sanctions (e.g., spanking, holding) if children try to escape from time-out.

Important Distinctions
Despite these common features, there are also some important distinctions among currently
available parent training programs. For example, some programs cover in their curriculum
areas of parenting that go beyond the two general skill areas noted earlier. For example, some
programs emphasize parents' ability to closely track and record specific child behaviors before
introducing the notion of contingent reinforcement. The importance of parental monitoring of
children's whereabouts, activities, and peer associations is emphasized in other programs,
particularly those targeting adolescent clients. Other programs address parents' knowledge of
childhood development, their understanding of behavioral principles, or their ability to engage
in systematic problem solving. More recently developed approaches to parent training tend to
include modules designed to enhance parents' ability to teach children, often through their use
of mutual problem-solving dialogue. Finally, some programs have added features designed to
help parents cope with stress, increase social support, or reduce marital conflict.

Parent training programs can also differ in the format used. The primary distinction here is
whether parents are seen individually as part of a larger group. There are advantages and
disadvantages to each approach. Working with an individual parent allows practitioners to
customize training to fit the needs and preferences of that parent. Rather than relying on a
standard training curriculum, practitioners can select topics and techniques that are most
relevant. Ideally, a baseline period of assessment and a thorough functional analysis will guide
the practitioner in this decision-making process. Another advantage to using an individualized
training format is greater flexibility in the process of training. Instruction, modeling,
rehearsal, coaching, feedback, and homework can all be varied to fit the needs and
preferences of the parent involved. Certain examples, exercises, and assignments might be
appealing to one parent but seem odd or inappropriate to another parent. Working with only
one family also allows therapists to more readily assess the degree to which a parent has
mastered a given skill before moving on to the next skill. A mastery-based approach is less
likely when working with a group of parents; there the pace is often tied to a predetermined
curriculum designed to address the needs of the average group member. When working
oneon-one with a parent, therapists can quicken the pace if parents prefer it and are relatively
competent from the start. For other parents, the therapist can slow the pace of training so as to
prevent parents from feeling overwhelmed and to foster an emergent sense of selfefficacy.
Finally, an individualized training format gives practitioners greater opportunity to consider a
parent's willingness to implement targeted skills and to process a parent's resistance to various
aspects of training. These are important therapeutic tasks that are made more difficult when
practitioners are training an entire group of parents at the same time.
There are advantages, however, to a group-based parent training format. The most obvious
advantage is the potential to help a wider number of struggling parents in less time with fewer
resources. It is not uncommon for parent training groups to include as many as 6 to 8 parents,
with some programs targeting even larger groups recruited from a single community or
school. A less obvious advantage to the group format is that participants can sometimes
contribute to the process of therapeutic change. Coparticipants can offer support and
validation to a struggling parent, as well as praise and suggestions when a parent is attempting
to use a new skill.
Another variation in parent training format is the medium by which information is imparted to
parents. Traditionally, parents and parent trainers work together in a face-to-face manner, with
parents having at least some opportunities to dialogue about issues of concern or clarification.
In an effort to standardize and economize the process by which parents receive useful
information, researchers have developed alternative formats. For example, Carolyn WebsterStratton's videotaped series The Incredible Years uses brief vignettes and narrative instruction
to cover a range of parenting skills and issues. Vignettes are used to illustrate parenting errors
and to model more effective parenting behaviors. The entire series is often used in
conjunction with a face-to-face group discussion format; however, it is also fully contained
and can be self-administered by parents. Another example of researchers seeking to widen the
dissemination of parent training is found in Matthew Sanders's Triple P program. Sanders and
his colleagues have used primetime television and other forms of mass communication to
teach adaptive parenting skills to entire communities. There are even parent training programs
that combine video with interactive computer technology. Parents are presented with specific
situations and asked to choose the most effective response. Errors are met with depictions of
the effective response. Technological advances in the formatting have allowed these programs
to be used as tools for prevention as well as intervention.

RESEARCH BASIS
Parent training is one of the most heavily researched and empirically supported interventions
available to practitioners working with children and families. Scores of researchers and over
three decades of work have yielded an impressive body of knowledge. Recent estimates
include over 100 parent training outcome studies involving more than 5,000 children. Today,
parent training is the treatment of choice for children whose problem behavior includes
aggression, temper tantrums, or noncompliance.

Outcome Studies
The early parent training outcome literature describes single-case studies offering clear
support for training parents to use techniques based on operant and social learning principles.
However, findings from early group outcome studies both supported and failed to support the
short-term efficacy of parent training. Negative findings were believed to be the result of
poorly trained or novice therapists, treatment formats that were too brief (e.g., only 8 to 10
weeks), or characteristics and risk factors of the participants. Subsequent studies were
designed to broaden the conceptual and empirical underpinnings of parent-based interventions
for child antisocial behavior (see below) and to improve the overall quality and rigor of
behaviorally based parent training. Researchers conducted analogue training studies,
developed detailed treatment manuals, and expanded their training curricula. They also
focused intently on the goal of preventing later delinquency in young at-risk children, placing
less emphasis on the treatment of serious antisocial behavior in older children and
adolescents.
A more recent accounting found consistent support for parent training. In this meta-analysis,
the immediate impact of parent training on children's level of problem behavior was examined
in an original pool of 117 studies. The overall mean effect size was 86, indicating that
children whose parents participated in parent training were, on average, functioning better
than 81% of the children in the control group. Also, the mean effect size did not differ greatly
across parent, teacher, and observer reports. These findings offer strong support for the value
of parent training, especially when compared against no intervention. Less clear is the value
of parent training compared to alternative treatments; families in control groups received an
alternative treatment less than 25% of the time. It is also worth noting that comparisons were
based on a small subset of studies because only 26 of the 117 studies met the study's inclusion
criteria.
Of these 26 studies, about two thirds were based on individually administered parent training,
the average number of sessions was just below 10, and the mean age of the target child was 6
years.
Compared to research on the short-term benefits of parent training, less is known about its
long-term benefits. The vast majority of published outcome studies fail to provide follow-up
data on the impact of parent training. Follow-up studies do exist, and these have ranged in
duration from 1 to 14 years. The findings from these studies are also fairly consistent in
reporting positive findings. The conclusions that can be drawn from these studies are limited,
however, by a lack of comparison data from subjects who were left untreated or who received
contrasting treatments. Some studies also suffer from differential rates of attrition between
target and comparison subjects, although occasionally these differences indicate higher risk
among the families who remained in the study. There have also been a few studies indicating

that treatment gains were lost at follow-up, a finding that is usually attributed to significant
levels of insularity (i.e., low income, social isolation, emotional distress) in the participating
parents.
Research on the long-term impact of parent training is currently being pursued by several
teams of researchers. Of particular interest is the degree to which parent training prevents the
occurrence of clinically significant behavior problems during adolescence and early
adulthood. This is an important question for those who use parent training as a tool for
preventing later delinquency. At issue is whether difficult preschoolers are likely to improve
without the benefit of parent training. One estimate is that less than half of all hard-to-manage
preschoolers will meet criteria for a disruptive behavior diagnosis at age 13 years. Follow-up
studies reporting the clinical significance of parent training outcomes generally find that
between 50% and 70% of children benefit. The downside of this finding is that 30% to 50%
of treated families failed to maintain clinically significant gains.
Some studies have examined the impact of parent training on children's behavior at school
and on untreated siblings. There is currently stronger support for carryover effects to siblings
than support for generalized effects to classrooms. Available findings have been inconsistent
about school effects, with some studies reporting an improvement in school behavior, others
finding a worsening of behavior, and still others indicating little or no change.
Parents who participate in parent training tend to rate the experience as very positive.
Measures of consumer satisfaction reveal that parents prefer performance oriented (e.g., skill
rehearsal exercises) and group discussion formats over formats that rely solely on the use of
lectures, written material, or self-administered videotapes. As for specific behavioral
techniques, parents typically rate rewarding good behavior and time-out as more useful than
all other techniques. Rated as least useful to parents are ignoring and attendingtechniques in
which parents must inhibit their urges to control their child's behavior.

Process Studies
Process studies examine the role of hypothesized causal mechanisms in an intervention
strategy. In the area of parent training, process studies test whether changes in parenting are
related to changes in children's behavior. Conceivably, children whose behavior improves
after their parents participate in parent training could be affected by factors that have little to
do with changes in how they are parented. Despite the importance of these issues, there have
been precious few studies of the causal process in parent training. Studies that have been
conducted tend to support the role of improved parenting as a causal factor in treatment
outcome. These studies have also revealed, however, that parent training is often a more
complex enterprise than first conceived. One of the first process studies found that
improvement in parents' use of monitoring was more predictive of treatment gains than
improvements in discipline. Also, changes in parents' use of positive reinforcement and childfocused problem solving failed to predict posttreatment reductions in child antisocial
behavior. Children of parents who improved both their use of discipline and monitoring were
expected to gain the most; however, only 50% of parents improved their discipline, only 16%
improved their monitoring, and only 10% improved on both discipline and monitoring. A
subsequent reanalysis of these data revealed that posttreatment use of coercive behavior was
above normative levels for most treated families and that families who failed to reach
normative levels had children who were significantly more likely to be arrested and placed
out of the home 2 years later.

More recent investigations lend additional support to the notion that posttreatment changes in
parenting practices are responsible for later improvements in children's functioning. These
studies are not without limitations, and nagging questions remain for future researchers. For
example, how much change in parenting can be expected from parents whose children are
highly coercive? What factors explain variability in parents' degree of change? How much
change is needed before one sees a positive impact on children's problem behavior? Are some
parenting practices more important to change than others? For how long are these changes
needed?

Conceptual Studies
An important assumption underlying parent training is that parents have an appreciable
impact on their child's development. Specifically, it is presumed that directly experienced
contingencies and repeated observations of behavioral models lead children to acquire and
perform behaviors that are reinforced and fail to acquire or suppress behaviors that are
punished or extinguished. This behaviorally based model of parental influence has been
challenged on three fronts. Developmental psychologists have long criticized behavioral
models as inadequately capturing the natural unfolding of children's internal structures and
abilities, which purportedly allow children to actively construct meaning out of their
experiences. Behavior geneticists have questioned the importance of environmental influence
generally and parents' influence specifically, given recent findings documenting the role of
genetic endowment in human development. A third challenge is based on recent findings and
theoretical arguments that nonfamilial inputs (e.g., peers, teachers, schools, media) exert a
much greater impact on children's development than do parents. Interestingly,
counterarguments to these challenges often cite findings from parent training outcome studies
as clear evidence that altered parenting can lead to significant and lasting changes in child
behavior.
Research on the conceptual underpinnings of parent training is extensive and spans more than
three decades. Leading the way in this effort are Gerald Patterson and his colleagues at the
Oregon Social Learning Center. Patterson's extensive observational research led to his
proposing the coercion hypothesis to explain the relation between poor parenting and
children's antisocial behavior. Proposed is a developmental process whereby children undergo
basic training in antisocial behavior by parents who reinforce their children's use of
coercive actions. Parents unwittingly engage in this coercive process because they are
negatively reinforced for giving in or reacting harshly to children's aversive behavior. Key to
this process is the power of escape conditioning: Behaviors that lead reliably and quickly to
the cessation of aversive stimuli are likely to be repeated time and again. Over time, both
parent and child come to rely on coercive influence strategies that can only work if escalated
in intensity and frequency, thereby leading to more aggression and other forms of antisocial
behavior.
Patterson's coercion hypothesis was recently revised to reflect the perspective of the matching
law. A major tenet of the matching law is that behavior is not simply a function of the rewards
that accrue to that behavior; rather, it is a function of rewards accruing to that behavior
relative to the rewards accruing to alternative behaviors. Thus, the rate at which two children
display aggressive behavior can be drastically different despite identical consequences if there
are differences in the consequences for nonaggressive behavior. Empirical studies informed
by the matching law and intraindividual analyses reveal that coercive behavior used by

conduct problem children is more effective than noncoercive behavior in terminating conflicts
with parents. The opposite is generally true for control children.
Complementing Patterson's coercion hypothesis is Robert Wahler's social continuity
hypothesis. Whereas Patterson's work has focused on children's use of coercion to escape
parental demands, Wahler's research has investigated why conduct problem children initiate
coercive behavior. Wahler and his colleague Jean Dumas proposed that high rates of coercive
behavior represented an attempt by conduct problem children to escape the inherent
discomfort of unpredictable family environments. Said differently, conduct problem children
initiate a large proportion of coercive exchanges with parents in order to generate greater
predictability. Extending this notion, Wahler argued that conduct problems arise from an
absence of continuity or predictability in children's relationships with important others
particularly parents. Children whose relationships lack predictability tend to generate it
through coerciveness, but this short-term strategy interferes with the development of skills
needed for social continuity in the long run. Thus, a preschooler who engages in disruptive
behavior at home might continue such behavior at school, but in both contexts coercion
interferes with the acquisition of skills necessary for generating more stable and satisfying
relationships later in life.
The insights and findings generated by the coercion and the social continuity hypotheses have
important implications for parent training, but existing parent training programs have been
slow to incorporate these developments. This delay is due, in part, to questions about how to
apply these recent advances. As noted earlier, parent training began as an effort to impart to
parents basic techniques used by trained behavior modifiers working in educational or
treatment settings. As a result, there has been a greater emphasis on short-term reductions in
misbehavior than on children's long-term socialization. More research is needed to determine
how the mechanisms for achieving long-term socialization differ from the mechanisms for
achieving children's short-term compliance. Particularly relevant are recent developmental
studies indicating that some children are far less responsive to parental discipline. If
corroborated in future studies, these findings suggest that parent trainers will need to adopt a
more idiographic and developmental perspective if they are to help struggling parents
socialize their difficult children.

RELEVANT TARGET POPULATIONS AND

EXCEPTIONS
Parent training is most appropriate for children whose problem behaviors meet criteria for
oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). These children are using defiance, tantrums, and other
forms of coercion to influence their parents. As such, they are at risk for adopting coercion as
a dominant influence strategy and for further progression down an antisocial pathway. Left
untreated, many of these children are at risk for adding to their repertoire physical aggression
and covert rule breaking, behaviors that signal a conduct disorder diagnosis. Parent training is
ideally suited for preventing this developmental worsening. It should be noted, however, that
parents who are multiply stressed, economically disadvantaged, or psychologically impaired
are likely to benefit less from parent training. Also, the vast majority of research in this field
has been conducted on samples of nonminority children, often exclusively boys.
Parent training is certainly indicated for children with conduct disorder, but as the severity
and duration of antisocial behavior increases, practitioners are advised to combine parent-

based interventions with other treatment components. For example, there is empirical support
for adding child-focused skills training that addresses aggressive children's deficiencies in
social information processing, social problem solving, interpersonal skills, and affect
regulation. As conduct children move into adolescence, they come increasingly under the
influence of deviant peers, a phenomenon that is itself predictive of school dropout,
delinquent behavior, and substance use. Parent training is still useful, but also needed are
interventions designed to impact multiple systems (family, peer, school).
Parent training has also been adapted for use with other clinical populations, especially those
children whose symptoms include behavioral excesses that are highly disruptive or harmful to
self and others (e.g., attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism, Asperger's syndrome).
The role of parent training in the treatment of children with ADHD has shifted recently.
Parent training is often recommended for parents of ADHD children, either alone or in
combination with medication. Recently, however, there is a growing recognition that parent
training is more accurately viewed as an adjunct to medication except for those ADHD
children whose coexisting conduct problems greatly increase their risk for later
maladjustment. Parent training has also been used to help parents who have a history of
maltreating their children. There is less research on this application of parent training, but the
most effective programs appear to be those that are theory driven and well implemented. A
notable concern when working with physically abusive parents is the means by which parents
enforce time-out. The concern is that spanking and other forms of physical discipline (e.g.,
holding) could lead to excessive hostility and further occurrences of physical aggression. For
maltreating parents, response cost procedures that can be implemented without force and with
less reliance on children's cooperation are often preferred over time-out.

COMPLICATIONS
Several risk variables have been linked empirically with a poor response to parent training.
These include both characteristics of the child (e.g., severity of problem behavior) and
characteristics of the parent (e.g., depression and antisocial traits). Maternal depression is
particularly important because it has been shown to be a better predictor of mothers' ratings of
child behavior than independent observations of the child's level of disruption. Also
implicated are stressful family circumstances (e.g., divorce, marital strife, poverty, social
isolation) that can disrupt parenting practices. The risk variables that predict a poor response
to parent training also predict which families are most likely to drop out of therapy. The
percentage of parents who drop out has been estimated to be around 30%, with the likelihood
increasing as the number of child, parent, and family risk factors increases. Some researchers
have suggested that parent training is inadequate to meet the needs of parents who are
multiply stressed. Several have attempted to bolster the impact of parent training by adding
treatment components that address such issues as depression, marital discord, and social
isolation. Results generally support these add-ons, but the outcomes are not uniformly
positive.
Parent training is more than training parents, and the complications that arise often stem
from a tendency for practitioners to forget this important caveat. Parents of antisocial children
often feel defeated, incompetent, and resentful. At times, their inclination is to resist attempts
to change how they parent, although the reasons for this resistance are not clear. Having
suffered a thousand defeats, struggling parents doubt whether an alternative and more
effective way to interact with their child is even possible. They might bring an earnest desire
to know what will work, but they also have a strong sense of what will not work. To suggest

otherwise is to risk defensiveness, yea-saying, dropping out, or some other form of resistance.
Managing this risk requires a working alliance that does not rest solely on the assumption that
skill deficits are the single, primary cause of mutual coercion and child conduct problems.
The more practitioners appreciate the challenge of parenting a difficult child and the more
they understand parents as individuals, the more effective they will be in helping them.

CASE ILLUSTRATION (INCLUDES BEHAVIORAL

ASSESSMENT)
Marcus was a 6-year-old boy who was brought to the clinic after having been suspended
from school for the second time in a month. Marcus had committed a number of offenses,
including taking things from other children's desks, damaging others' artwork, and pushing
and hitting other boys during playground disputes. Marcus's mother, Ms. J., was concerned
about her son but also angry with the school because she now had to make arrangements to
take off work while her son was home from school. It was learned that Marcus lived with two
older half-siblings, neither of whom had a history of problem behavior. Ms. J. reported that
Marcus's father was a convicted felon with whom the family now had little or no contact.
Interview, observation, and behavioral rating scales led to a diagnosis of conduct disorder and
ruled out ODD and ADHD. The possibility of the latter diagnosis was raised by Ms. J.
because her nephew had recently been placed on medication for ADHD and had responded
well. Ms. J. was hopeful for a similar treatment scenario.
The therapist in this case was faced with the challenge of (a) understanding the difficulties
associated with parenting Marcus, (b) improving Ms. J.'s current parenting practices, and (c)
avoiding whatever resistance might follow from Ms. J. learning that her son was not ADHD.
In an effort to establish a working alliance, the therapist in this case spent considerable time
learning about the struggle Ms. J. faced and affirming her constructive efforts. The therapist
also referred Ms. J. to a local pediatrician for possible medication for Marcus. This referral
was followed, however, by a consult with the pediatrician about the fact that Marcus did not
meet diagnostic criteria for ADHD, questions about whether medication might still be helpful,
the importance of being supportive to this mother's efforts, and the expectation that successful
intervention would require working directly with Ms. J. on her parenting.
Ms. J. was pleased with this first step but soon returned with additional concerns about
Marcus's behavior at home and school. He was being aggressive toward his sisters and peers
and defiant with teachers. At that point, the therapist began to explore with Ms. J. the specific
strategies she was using to manage her son's behavior. It was learned that Ms. J. was fairly
inconsistent with him, letting things slide when she was tired or in a particularly good mood
or reacting harshly when he fought loudly with his sisters or got in trouble at school. She
described the quality of their relationship in positive terms, pointing to specific occasions
when they set out on their own for special times together. It appeared, therefore, that Ms. J.
was failing to appreciate the mixed messages she was giving her son about which behaviors
were appropriate and which were not.
The therapist asked Ms. J. if she could narrow her disciplinary focus to one or two specific
behaviors, especially behaviors that were coercive or antisocial in nature. Ms. J. identified
hitting his sisters as the target behavior. The therapist then discussed with Ms. J. the goal of
raising the cost of Marcus hitting his sisters relative to the cost of his using other behaviors for
resolving conflict. The therapist and Ms. J. worked together to generate parenting strategies

(disciplinary and nondisciplinary) that could be used to shift the reinforcement contingencies
surrounding this one behavior. For Ms. J., the challenge was twofold: (1) allow Marcus and
his sisters to engage in sometimes loud but nonviolent arguments without punishment or
criticism and (2) respond consistently and firmly to those occasions when Marcus did resort to
aggression with his sisters. Establishing and implementing this initial plan illustrated the
process by which Ms. J. slowly learned that parenting her son would require a plan of
discipline that was selective, effective, and sustainable.
Timothy A. Cavell
Further Reading

Entry Citation:
Cavell, Timothy A. "Parent Training." Encyclopedia of Behavior Modification and Cognitive
Behavior Therapy. 2007. SAGE Publications. 15 Apr. 2008. <http://sageereference.com/cbt/Article_n2088.html>.