Use of Evidence‐Based Parenting Programs for Parents of At‐Risk Young Children

Abstract

When the court placed Pam, as an infant, with her grandmother, her mother was able to regain custody of her by completing a traditional parenting class model. Not surprisingly, there continued to be neglect and abuse in the home postreunification, and Pam was removed again. Pam’s mother had learned little from the program she had attended, and what she had learned about the needs of her child were just ideas—she could not implement the developmentally appropriate strategies in her day-to-day life with her daughter. She reverted back to her inappropriate discipline practices and her less-than-nurturing relationship with Pam and eventually lapsed into neglectful behaviors that resulted in her daughter’s reentry into the system. Traditional parenting programs such as the one Pam’s mother attended are defined as parent education-only classes and do not provide an interactive component for the parent and child to play together or opportunities for the parent to practice his or her newly acquired skills. In these classes, the teacher lectures to the parents about parenting activities. Pam’s mother had been a school dropout with poor academic skills. She attended a typical middle school where lecture was the classroom format, and she had failed. Even so, she was placed in a traditional parenting class using this same presentation formula with expectations that she would learn. During her minimal participation in the classes, she had been inattentive and often needed discipline from the instructor. On more than one occasion, she was asked to put her cell phone away and to stop talking while the teacher was speaking. When she began the program, she was never assessed as to what she did or did not know about appropriate parenting or child development, nor was she reassessed at the end of the program to document progress or the lack thereof. The parenting agency had never seen her interact with infant Pam to assess whether she could use the skills presented to her. However, because her attendance was consistent—she had attended all eight of the parenting sessions—Pam’s mother was given a certificate of attendance, which she presented in court as evidence of