Parent Management Training and Social Skills Training

OVERVIEW

 

Parent management training and social skills training is a dual-component intervention that aims to prevent delinquent behavior in boys by teaching disruptive boys prosocial skills and self-control and training their parents to properly manage their sons’ behavior. A random assignment evaluation has found the program to have a positive impact on achievement, fighting, adjustment, and delinquent behavior.

 

DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM

 

Target population:  Elementary school boys who are at-risk for later delinquent behavior

 

Parent management training and social skills training is an intervention for elementary school boys who are considered to be at risk for delinquent behavior based on teacher ratings of disruptiveness. The two-year intervention consists of parent management training and social skills training in order to target poor parenting skills and poor social skills, which may be linked to delinquency.

 

The parent management training is based on Oregon Social Learning Center’s parent management training. It involves giving parents a reading program; training parents to monitor their children’s behavior, give them positive reinforcement for prosocial behavior, punish effectively without being abusive, and manage family crises. It also helps parents generalize what they have learned. Parent management training is scheduled to involve one session every two weeks over the course of two years, but the psychologist or social worker who is working with the families has the option of deciding to have more or fewer sessions depending on the families’ needs.

 

The social skills training component is also conducted by psychologists and social workers and occurs in school in small groups. The first year of social skills training involves nine sessions focused on prosocial skills and includes coaching, peer modeling, role playing, and reinforcement contingencies. The second year of social skills training involves ten sessions focused on self-control and includes coaching, peer modeling, self-instruction, behavior rehearsal, and reinforcement contingencies.

 

EVALUATION OF PROGRAM

 

Evaluated population: 1,034 boys in kindergarten classes in low socioeconomic areas of Montreal made up the total sample for the longitudinal study. In order to qualify, both parents had to be born in Canada, have fewer than 14 years of schooling, and be native French speakers. The total sample included an at-risk subsample of 248 boys who had disruptive scores above the 70^th percentile as evaluated by teacher questionnaires. Of these at-risk boys, 172 families agreed to participate in the intervention. Most of the boys were seven years old at the beginning of the treatment.

 

Approach: Families in the at-risk subsample were randomly assigned to the treatment condition, a no-treatment contact control group, which provided data for a separate study of disruptive boys’ social interactions, or a no-treatment no contact control group. Baseline evaluations were conducted at the end of the kindergarten year, and the intervention began four months later at the beginning of the first grade year. Data were collected yearly for three years after the end of the intervention from teachers, parents, students, school records, and classmates on achievement, fighting, adjustment, delinquent behavior, and perceptions of antisocial behavior. Also children reported their perceptions of their parents’ behavior.

 

Results: There were positive impacts on achievement (at the one and three-year follow-ups), fighting (at the three-year follow-up), global adjustment (at the three-year follow-up), and delinquent behavior (at the three-year follow-up). There was no impact on mothers’ rating of boys’ antisocial behavior or boys’ perceptions of their parents’ behavior.

 

SOURCES FOR MORE INFORMATION

 

References

Tremblay, R.E., Vitaro, F., Bertrand, L., LeBlanc, M., Beauchesne, H., Boileau, H., & David, L. (1992). Parent and child training to prevent early onset of delinquency: The Montreal longitudinal-experimental study. McCord, J., & Tremblay, R.E. (Eds.), Preventing antisocial behavior: Interventions from birth through adolescence (pp.117-138). New York: The Guilford Press.

 

KEYWORDS: Children (3-11), Elementary, Male Only, High-Risk, Urban, Parent or Family Component, Parent Training/Education, Skills Training, Academic Achievement/Grades, Aggression/Bullying, Delinquency

 

Program information last updated 11/5/10

 

 

 

		© Child Trends 2004