CICC's Confident Parenting

Survival Skills Training Program Unlocking the mysteries of child behavior

Parents often feel controlled by their children's misbehavior because they do not know how to set limits effectively. They may pay so much attention when their children mess up that they forget to notice the cooperative and peaceful times.

CICC's Confident Parenting Program teaches parents how to pay attention to, and how to increase the times when their children are good. It also teaches effective limit-setting procedures so that parents will not feel victimized by their child's misbehavior.

The program provides parents with effective skills to manage such child behaviors as:

• Disruptiveness
• Fears
• Shyness
• Tantrums
• Bedwetting
• Restlessness
• Disobedience
• Laziness
• Aggressiveness

Parents learn skills of effective praising, effective ignoring, mild social disapproval, "time out" procedures for misbehavior, and setting up special incentive systems. These parenting skills are taught through a regular sequence of instructor demonstration, parental role playing and home behavior change projects.

The Confident Parenting Program has been used for over a decade within community mental health agencies, and it was selected to represent the social learning or behavioral approach to parent training as part of the continuing education program sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health.

Its versatility and utility is reflected in the fact that is has also been used extensively in child abuse programs, regular and special education settings, Head Start agencies, private practices and in churches and temples. Its value-free application of child management skills has allowed for its successful use with a wide variety of ethnic minority groups.

The program is conducted for small groups of parents in ten two-hour sessions. It is best suited for parents of children aged 2 through 12, though it has been shown to be helpful with parents of all aged children.

Field test results indicate the CICC's Confident Parenting Program reduces the need for additional family or child services, significantly diminishes a variety of child behavior problems, improves overall family relations and provides useful alternatives to corporal punishment. Thus, it can provide a community with an intervention to promote child mental health and prevent child abuse and school failure. By so doing, the program also aids in preventing drug abuse, delinquency and gang involvement.