Parents in Groups: Behavioral Skills versus Problem Solving

Statement of the research problem The parental role, unlike most others (e.g. work, marital) provides little or no opportunity for training, for gradually assuming the obligations, or for becoming an ex-parent (Rossi, 1968). Regardless of the developmental phase of a child's life, the parental role can be stressful. Particularly stressful is the parenting of an aggressive and/or non compliant child. Research background questions/hypotheses Research findings (e.g. Forehand & McMahon, 1981; Patterson, 1982) suggest that changes in parental behaviors and attitudes produce changes in parent's interactions with their aggressive children. The goal of behavioral parent training has been to modify children's behaviors by teaching parents skills in which they may be deficient, such as reinforcement of prosocial behavior and the provision of discipline for antisocial behavior. A number of studies have indicated that the behavioral skill training approach produces at least short term changes in child and parental behavior (e.g. Daly, Holland, Forrest, & Felbaum, 1985;Sayger, Horne, Walker, & Passmore, 1988). However, few studies have examined the relative effectiveness of components of behavioral parent training packages (e.g. Horn