Program Profile: Common Sense Parenting

This is a group-based, parent-training class designed for parents of youth who exhibit behavior and emotional problems. The program is rated Promising. Treatment group parents reported statistically significant greater improvements in parental satisfaction, family satisfaction, parental efficacy, and children’s externalizing behaviors, compared with control group parents. However, there were no statistically significant differences in children’s internalizing behaviors.

A Promising rating implies that implementing the program may result in the intended outcome(s).

Program Goals/Program Theory

Common Sense Parenting© (CSP) is a group-based parent-training class designed for parents of youths aged 6–16 who exhibit significant behavior and emotional problems. The objective of the program is to teach positive parenting techniques and behavior management strategies to help increase positive behavior, decrease negative behavior, and model appropriate alternative behavior for children.

CSP was adapted from the Teaching Family Model and the Boys Town Family Home Program (known as Treatment Family Home Program), both of which draw from operant learning principles (i.e., positive and negative reinforcement, stimulus control) and Social Learning Theory (i.e., modeling, training in self-instruction). In both programs, married couples were trained to use behavior methods to respond to conduct problems of children and adolescents in group-home settings. The behavioral treatment model emphasized positive relationships, skills training, and self-control. During the development of CSP, the parenting skills from these approaches were adapted and simplified for use by parents in their own homes.

Program Components

The program consists of six weekly 2-hour sessions involving a group of 10–12 parents led by certified trainers who work from a detailed trainer’s manual. The session topics are (1) “Parents Are Teachers,” (2) “Encouraging Good Behavior,” (3) “Preventing Problems,” (4) “Correcting Problem Behavior,” (5) “Teaching Self-Control,” and (6) “Putting It All Together.”

Program participants work from a parent manual that provides information on CSP skills, parenting advice, scenarios, skill cards for quick reference, and a personal parenting plan workbook. Between class sessions, participants are assigned readings from the parent manual and homework activities from the workbook to supplement the training received in class and help parents become more familiar with the newly taught skills.

CSP classes concentrate on experiential learning and consist of five training components—review, instruction, modeling, practice, and feedback—and conclude with a summary. Each session is designed to teach one parenting concept and a skill related to that concept. During each training session, parents review the skills learned during the previous session, receive instruction in a new parenting skill, view videotaped models of the new skill, practice how to use the skill in simulated role-play, and receive feedback from the trainer. Parenting skills and techniques are taught to parents for adaptation in any home environment. Parents learn skills such as the use of clear communication, positive reinforcements and consequences, self-control, and problem solving.

Study

Thompson and colleagues (1996) used a quasi-experimental design to examine the program effectiveness of a cost-reduced version of Common Sense Parenting© (CSP). The shorter, modified program was reduced from 8 weeks to 6 weeks of training sessions, and included in the curriculum only those skills that had been found in previous research to be the most useful to parents, such as simulated role-playing. The primary objective of the study was to determine whether a shorter program taught by just one trainer without individual sessions could produce statistically significant effects. This study concentrated on two problem factors displayed by the children: internalizing (i.e., withdrawn, anxious/depressed) and externalizing (i.e., delinquent, aggressive) behaviors. The study also looked at improvements in satisfaction with family relationships in general, a factor not investigated in previous research, and clinically significant changes in children and families.

The program was offered in three locations in a Midwestern community. A total of four parent trainers taught the sessions, with each trainer being extensively trained in the CSP program method. Parents were assigned to the training course closest to their home, with class size capped at a total of 12 parents. Parents were placed in the waitlist control (WLC) group if the class they were signing up for was already full. If parents felt that their family needed immediate treatment and their neighborhood class was already full, researchers allowed these select cases to enroll in a course further from their home. Approximately 90 families requested or were referred to the CSP program, with over half referred by an agency or court. Parents were assigned to either the parent training (PT) condition ( n = 39) or the WLC condition ( n = 27). Pretest comparisons using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and chi-squared analysis revealed that parents in the PT and WLC groups were roughly equivalent on demographic variables and outcome measures. Parents in both groups were mostly white females who had some post–high school education. However, the WLC group had a significantly higher percentage of single parents (48 percent compared to 26 percent in the PT group) and younger parents, suggesting greater risks than in the PT group. These significant differences were examined using stepwise multiple regression analysis.

Initial data was collected from one parent in each family. Parents were told to identify one target child for behavioral assessment (defined as a child living at home with the most severe behavior problem under age 18). If parents had more than one child, and each displayed equally bad internalizing/externalizing behaviors, they were told to pick the eldest child to target. Target children ranged from 2 to 17 years old, with an average age of 10. About two thirds of the children were male.

A 2 (time) x 2 (group) repeated measure of multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) along with planned interaction and pairwise contrasts were used to test for treatment effects and maintenance of effects over time for the PT group. Outcome measures included the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), the Parent Sense of Competence Scale (PSOC), and the Family Satisfaction Scale (FSS). The CBCL is a widely used instrument to identify child behavior problems, including internalizing and externalizing behaviors. The PSOC is a 17-item scale that was developed from an assessment tool that originally determined parenting self-esteem of parents with infants. The updated version includes two scales: satisfaction and efficacy. The FSS is a 14-item scale that measures satisfaction with family relationships. For the WLC group, pretest and posttest data was collected 6 weeks apart, before parents’ attendance in the program. For the PT group, data was collected at pretest, at posttest, and at 3-month follow-up. The CrimeSolutions review of this study focused on the differences between the PT and WLC groups at the posttest, because the WLC participants received the intervention following the posttest. No subgroup analyses were conducted.

Parent trainers have all been trained in the Common Sense Parenting© program and also have previous experience with the Boys Town Family Home Program. The design of staff training was created so that no prerequisite of formal education in the behavioral sciences is required. Trainers use a detailed trainers’ manual and parent participants are provided with a parent manual. Videotaped vignettes are also frequently used, so access to appropriate video player technology is required. For more information on training, please see the Common Sense Parenting website .

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile: