Changing Relationships through Interactions: Preliminary Accounts of Parent–Child Interactions after Undertaking Individual Parent Training

Abstract

Parent and child interaction training has been increasingly investigated over recent years. However, the mechanisms of change within individual training programmes are not well understood. To explore the factors that can facilitate or inhibit meaningful changes in interactions and ultimately relationships, the current study employed semi-structured interviews to obtain first person accounts from parents who had undertaken an individualised parent-training programme. Three participants provided accounts of the training programme and their perceived impact upon interactions with their children were analysed using inductive thematic analysis. The analysis resulted in three themes, which illustrate how participants adjusted their interactional style with their child to varying degrees through enhanced personal awareness, increased understanding of their child’s emotional and interactional needs, and accepting the reciprocity of interactional accountability. Changes in interactional style enabled participants to alter their perceptions of their own behaviours, their child’s behaviours, and how they influenced one another through interactions. Recommendations for future research and therapeutic practice are discussed in the context of the findings and the existing evidence base.

“Sometimes I think my frustration is the real issue”: A qualitative study of parents’ experiences of transformation after a parenting programme

“…Differences in perceptions of their child’s behaviour could be seen as ‘small changes’ [ 16 ], but these were important changes, especially for parents in Group 2.1 (positive experience of IY and perception of child behaviour but negative or no quantitative change in child behaviour). As confidence grew among these parents, so did their sense of calm.…”

“…In line with this, for many parents in the current study, positive reinforcement came from seeing their child’s behaviour improve or by feeling more confident and calmer in themselves about their child’s behaviour. Encouragement from facilitators was also, at times, the impetus that seemed to help parents to reframe their experiences as little accomplishments rather than hopelessness [ 16 , 17 ]. The impact of these types of positive reinforcement were illustrated in the examples parents from Groups 1 (positive experience of IY and positive change in child behaviour) and 2.1 gave of learning how to talk about feelings with their child or recognising the behaviours their child could not control.…”

“…As Doubt et al, [ 12 ] have argued, it is important to understand how a parent translates learning from a programme into positive parent-child interactions. Recently, Parry and colleagues [ 16 ] (p. 641) conducted an in-depth qualitative study of the mechanics of “the small changes” that three mothers described making after attending a parenting programme. Being part of the parenting programme helped the women in Parry’s study reshape their perceptions of themselves as mothers and of their children’s needs, which led to positive changes in their parenting.…”

Read‐Alouds: A Case Study of Two Preschoolers on the Autism Spectrum

“…Interactions with family members are not only important for language and literacy development (Blackwell et al, 2014), but also for socioemotional development. According to Parry et al (2018), the child learns from their main caregivers (which may include parents or family members) and their behaviors are a response to how they feel about the caregiver. For children with ASD, parent or caregiver interactions around books have great potential to promote language and literacy skills, as well as social skills.…”

Restorative Parenting: Delivering Trauma-Informed Residential Care for Children in Care

“…However, the qualitative analysis does offer a unique perspective from an under-represented workforce, based on personal accounts of TPs and the Information Power Model of analysis (see Malterud et al, 2016), to provide a novel platform on which to develop further research in this area. The analytic approach facilitated a critical realist conceptualisation of themes within the scope of the study (Roth-Yousey et al, 2012) and formed a deductive synthesis of reinterpreted firstperson accounts of the TPs and their systemic experiences of the programme and their relationships with colleagues and the children in their care (Parry et al, 2018).…”