Teaching adults effective parenting skills best tool to treat children with serious conduct problems

Not surprising, these researchers have discovered the obvious — that if parents have the appropriate tools, they can be more effective! I say every first-time parent should, at the very least, purchase (or borrow from the local library) at least two good parenting books.

Training adults to have more effective parenting skills is the most potent tool available and should remain the standard of care in treating preadolescent children with serious conduct behavior problems.

That finding comes from a new study that indicates for the first time that the same interventions used to treat boys with conduct problems also can be utilized to help girls with similar problems, said Theodore Beauchaine. He is a University of Washington associate professor of psychology and lead author of the paper appearing in the current issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.

“You don’t treat conduct disorder or delinquency just by treating the child,” Beauchaine said. “This study shows that parent training is the most effective tool in dealing with conduct disorder. We compared a great number of variables and there was not a single condition where a treatment without parent training was more effective.”

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding board member and treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine.

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    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 15 Jul 2005
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