Child Discipline and African American Parents with Adolescent Children: A Psychoeducational Approach to Clinical Mental Health Counseling

Abstract

Parents from all backgrounds often grapple with child-rearing issues when their children reach adolescent age. For African American families, the task of addressing problematic adolescent behaviors is complicated by their interaction with external systems (e.g., agencies, schools, legal systems) whose workers often struggle to meet the mental health and social service needs of an increasingly diverse society. Clinical mental health counselors are ethically bound to be knowledgeable about the cultural diversity of individuals and families and about changes in cultural expectations and values. The primary focus of this article is to lay the foundation for a psychoeducational approach to addressing child discipline with African American parents who have adolescent children living at home. A five-week psychoeducational model is presented to inform African American parents of current research and discussions on African American child disciplinary methods.

Organizational and practitioner challenges to Black youth accessing mental health care in Canada: Problems and solutions.

“…In addition, clinicians who lacked an understanding of broader familial and community norms often missed opportunities to better understand participants’ perspectives and needs (Jones et al, 2020). Additionally, service providers who are mandatory reporters may mislabel certain experiences as abuse, which can further alienate Black youth because they are afraid of child services being called on their families, as evidenced by Adkison-Johnson’s (2015) considerations for clinical mental health counselling for African American parents.…”

Influence of autism on fathering style among Black American fathers: a narrative inquiry

“…accepted disciplinary practices) and broader societal influences (e.g. institutional and/or individual racism) (Adkison‐Johnson, 2011, ; Boyd‐Franklin, 1987; Gordon et al ., ). The development and demonstration of patience was accepted as a strength many parents develop throughout the life cycle, but a requisite quality for Black fathers of children with autism.…”

“…Adkison‐Johnson () offered a psychoeducational model for couples and family therapists to help Black parents address child discipline. Within the model, Adkison‐Johnson () suggested considerations like helping parents operationalize child discipline, preparing Black American adolescents for racially oppressive environments, discussing grandparent roles in disciplining Black American adolescents, and identifying differences in disciplining practices between Black American mothers and fathers. Although Adkison‐Johnson () implicitly suggested some influencing factors on Black American fathers’ discipline practices, findings are limited since they fail to capture the fathers’ direct narratives about their own fathering practices.…”

Evidence‐based counseling for African‐American parents: A contextual humanistic perspective

“…Recent investigations of parent education have placed an emphasis on developing culturally responsive programming in which evidence-based parenting interventions are adapted to focus on racial, ethnic, and cultural issues. While recent studies on culturally adapted parent education programs exist and have received support, critics of this approach contend that such interventions are not grounded conceptually in African-American families' lived experiences (Adkison-Johnson, 2015;Coard et al, 2007;Hall et al, 2016). It is also important to note that parenting programs in general are often plagued with low participation and high dropout rates (Breitenstein et al, 2012;Gross et al, 2009).…”

“…This group is a 5-week counseling approach developed for African-American mothers and fathers who have adolescent or late adolescent children residing in their homes, in which the parents engage in deep introspective counseling while addressing adolescent problematic behavior. A comprehensive description of the child discipline group activities is presented in Adkison-Johnson (2015). This study used the same format and content of the original model.…”