Cognitive Behavioral Parent Programs for the Treatment of Child Disruptive Behavior

Although the therapeutic effectiveness of behavioral approaches to group parent programs in reducing child disruptive behavior has been established, about a third of all families do not benefit from participating. Because unhealthy/maladaptive emotions seem to be a primary reason why adults fail to engage in correct parenting practices and fail to benefit from behavioral parent programs, the key would be to bring together the cognitive and behavioral models of self-regulation to improve the outcomes of parental interventions for child disruptive behavior. Research in cognitive science (see David, 2004) seems to support the idea that both cognitive and behavioral elements need to be implemented in a structured way in parent programs, and focus should change from parental cold cognitions, which do not automatically result in parents’ emotional response unless appraised, to hot parental cognitions. This article proposes changes in parenting interventions for child externalizing behavior based on advances in cognitive behavioral theory (CBT).