Effects of a parent education program on parents and their preadolescent children

Abstract

This study assessed the effects of the Survival Training for Parents (STP) program on parental attitudes and on the self‐esteem and manifest anxiety of preadolescent children. The STP program presents Adlerian parenting principles in six 21/2‐hour sessions to the parents of preadolescents, as an outreach service of a community mental health center. Participants were selected from volunteers from two school districts in northeastern Ohio. Parents in the experimental condition participated in the STP program while control group parents were wait‐listed. Eighteen parent‐child pairs completed pre and posttesting. Analyses of covariance using the pretest as covariate showed that STP was effective in changing parent attitudes of confidence (p <.01), causation (p <.01), and understanding (p <.05) at posttest. The children of participants in STP improved in self‐esteem in school ( p <.05) at posttest. The results are compared to other parent education outcome studies.

Family and Parenting Behaviors Predicting Middle School Adjustment: A Longitudinal Study

“…Although attentiveness was included in Baumrind's (1967) initial definition of Pattern I parenting, it has not generally been a specific focus within the research on authoritative parenting of older children and adolescents. However, it has emerged in studies of family interaction processes (e.g., Bell & Bell, 1983;Powers, Hauser, Schwartz, Noam, & Jacobson, 1983) and has been an important variable in the parent training literature (Bronstein et al, 1996;Esters & Levant, 1983;Huhn & Zimpfer, 1989). Because it allows children to develop their own voices and assert their own personalities, and communicates to them that their interests and concerns are meaningful and worth listening to, parental attention seems likely to enhance children's sense of selfworth and capability for independent thinking.…”

“…The latter may well be important for academic success in the middle and high school years, as educational tasks become increasingly complex and challenging. Parental attentiveness has, in fact, been found to be related to adolescents' higher level of ego development (Powers et al, 1983), and to foster preadolescents' self-esteem (Esters & Levant, 1983;Hinkle, Arnold, Croake, & Keller, 1980;Huhn & Zimpfer, 1989) and academic achievement (Esters & Levant, 1983). The absence of attentiveness can be seen in parents who seldom interact with their children, consistently answer in monosyllables, or mainly talk while their children listen.…”