Parent development as an outcome of parent education is conceptualized. A cognitive theory-based educational design for facilitating parent development and its implementation in 4 parent education sites is described. Preliminary evidence is reported regarding theoretical aspects of parent development and the efficacy of the educational design in producing parent development outcomes. Implications of focusing parent education on complex parent development outcomes are discussed. FOCUS ON PARENT DEVELOPMENT* Ruth Thomas Most parent education programs seek to help parents learn new skills, knowledge, and attitudes, and also offer parents support. Such programs provide parents with information they can immediately apply in their parenting and the sense that they are not alone in their struggles. By emphasizing principles of child development, parenting practices related to problems parents experience, and confidence-building social support, these programs are moderately to largely successful in fostering the changes sought in parents (Anchor & Thomason, 1977; Dembo, Sweitzer, & Lauritzen, 1985; Pinsker & Geoffrey, 1981). An assumption underlying such programs is that more skilled, knowledgeable, and supported parents will be better able to foster their children's development (Powell, 1986, 1988; Weiss, 1988). A substantial body of evidence exists that supports the validity of this assumption (e.g., Dembo et al. 1985; Gray & Ruttle, 1980; Pfannenstiel & Seltzer, 1989; Powell, 1983, 1986; Slaughter, 1983; Yawkey, 1982). Despite these profiles of success, parent education programs and the outcomes they seek have been criticized. Critics have claimed, for example, that simply providing parents with information about children's development and teaching parenting as a collection of skills is not likely to affect deeper, critical parental perspectives (Bromwich, 1981). Others have pointed out that typical programs are successful with only a narrow range of parents (Howrigan, 1988; Jackson, 1983), that broader individual and family-level outcomes are rarely addressed (Sheehan & Keogh, 1981; Simeonsson, Cooper, & Scheiner, 1982; Travers & Light, 1982; Upshur, 1988; Zigler & Balla, 1982), and that such programs fail to reflect newer, more complex and comprehensive perspectives of family and human development (Newberger, 1980a; Upshur, 1988). Such criticisms have generated alternative ways of thinking about parent education. These alternative perspectives are typically broader and more comprehensive than conventional ones, focusing, for example, on the entire family system (Noller & Taylor, 1989), self psychology (Brems, Baldwin, & Baxter, 1993; Kohut, 1978, 1982), and parent development (Brooks, 1991; Upshur, 1988). Design and evaluation of parent education based on these newer paradigms require new concepts and new educational and evaluation approaches (Weiss, 1988). This article explores parent development as an aim of parent education and considers the relevance to parent education of educational applications of cognitive theory. Parent development is conceptualized, a cognitive theory-based Reflective Dialogue Parent Education Design (RDPED) is described, and preliminary evidence regarding parent development and the RDPED obtained from a field study is reported. Interest in parent development as an aim of parent education is based on the assumption that parents who have reached higher levels in their own development have a wider repertoire for dealing with, and more complex ways of understanding, their children, their parenting role, and their parent-child relationships than parents who have not reached these levels (Upshur, 1988; Weiss, 1988). Parents who are more emotionally and cognitively mature or advanced should be better able to support their children's development than parents who are less mature. Use of parent development as a basis for educational design requires that it be clearly and adequately conceptualized. …