The Insular Mother: Her Problems in Parent‐child Treatment

Abstract

Eighteen mother-child dyads were referred for psychological help because of the children's oppositional behaviors and the mothers' aversive reactions to the children. All dyads were from low income families in which the mothers reported themselves to be relatively isolated from social contact in their communities. Following a baseline phase, the mothers were trained to modify their children's oppositional behaviors through time out and a point system. Fourteen of the dyads were observed in three phases of the study: baseline, parent training or treatment, and a 1-year follow-up period. In Phases one and two, child opposition and mother aversive reactions to the children were measured twice weekly by professional observers in the home settings. During Phase three (follow-up), these observations occurred twice per month. In addition, the mothers' self-reported contacts with people in their communities were obtained immediately after each observation. Results showed significant improvement in the mother-child problems during the parent training or treatment phase. However, the problems returned to baseline levels of occurrence during the follow-up phase. The self-report findings indicated that number of mother contacts with friends was an inverse predictor of these problems. On days marked by high proportions of friend contacts, motherchild problems were lower in frequency than on days marked by low proportions of friend contacts. These correlational findings were taken to suggest that a mother's extrafamily social contacts may influence her child interaction patterns at home. This possibility was discussed as a factor in the long-term success of parent training as a treatment strategy.DESCRIPTORS: child-mother behavior problems, coercive contacts, friendship, correlational analyses, indirect influencesChild improve behavior problems in family settings following parent training in social learning techniques (Forehand & Atkeson, 1977). More important, there are also recent data indicating that these improvements may be maintained after such parent training. In Patterson and Fleishman (1979), 33 problem families were observed in a 12-month follow-up phase after successful parent training. At the 12-month time frame the children's behavior problems were sampled through direct observation and parent self-report.

Social support and education groups for single mothers: a randomized controlled trial of a community-based program

“…Social support exerts a broad positive influence on personal health, [23][24][25] maternal-child relations, child psychosocial functioning and family functioning. [26][27][28][29][30] Maternal education about child development can lead to improved child competence, academic test performance and intelligence quotients. [31][32][33][34] Parent management training, both group based and individually tailored, has been shown to have a positive effect on parenting and on children's emotional and behavioural adjustment.…”

A comparison of the effects of child management and planned activities training in five parenting environments

“…Furthermore, multifaceted training procedures (e.g., instructions, modeling, and differential feedback to parent following observation of parentchild interaction in either the clinic or the home) are required to achieve the above goal (Koegel, Glahn, & Nieminen, 1978;Sanders, 1982). However, some parents have considerably more difficulty than others in generalizing their newly acquired parenting skills from one setting, behavior, sibling, or time to another McMahon, Forehand, Griest, & Wells, 1981;Sanders & James, 1983;Wahler, 1980). This lack of consistent response by parents to training procedures has prompted researchers to identify marital, psychopathological, attitudinal, socioeconomic, and community contact variables that will discriminate families who are successful and unsuccessful in parent training (Griest & Wells, 1983;Wahler & Graves, 1983).…”

Child Abuse and Neglect by Parents With Disabilities: A Tale of Two Families

“…Tricia and Malcolm were very isolated. Their social contacts were virtually limited to service providers (Wahler, 1980 extended family members, respite providers, foster parents).…”