1. Chapter 19 & 20
Saleha, Dorsa & Anita

2. Adapting to a Bilateral Lens

3.  Concerned with those children who
frequently use aggression and other forms of
antisocial behaviour to meet their needs and
influence each other

4.  Aggression heightens a child’s risk for serious
maladjustment such as juvenile delinquency,
adult criminality, substance abuse, impaired
occupational and marital functioning

5.  PMT is a therapeutic strategy in which
parents are trained to use skills for managing
children’s problem behaviour
 Goal is to enhance parental control over
children’s behaviour, this can be done by:
 Issuing clear commands
 Extinguish or ignore minor misbehaviours
 Reinforce desirable behaviours

6.  Cavell and Strand argue that we need to update
and expand parent based interventions on four
points:
1. Nagging concerns about benefits and mechanism of
PMT
2. Revisions in behaviourally based assumptions that
underlie PMT
3. Greater appreciation of the role of non-parenting
factors in the development and course of childhood
aggression
4. Recent advances in conceptualization of parental
influence

7.  PMT is most effective when used to treat
oppositional preschoolers whose parents are
not overly burdened by socioeconomic
disadvantages, familial stress or individual
psychopathology
 Lack of research on PMT being effective to
treat children who are at greatest risk for
negative ‘sequelae’ of childhood aggression

8.  Kerr & Stattin (2000) found that when
parents were aware of their child’s
whereabouts (based on child’s information)
they became more predictive of their
problem behaviour.
 Cavell & Strand have outlined a two factor
model:
 Parental supervision
 Child wandering

9. 1. Matching Law (Patterson’s Coercion
Hypothesis):
▪ Children use coercion to escape from the demands
associated with parent’s requests, prohibitions and
instructions
▪ Findings: Parents of aggressive children do a poor job
of disciplining their children which is why children get
used to using coercion.

10. 2. Wahler’s Social Continuity Hypothesis:
▪ Behavioural problems arise from an absence of
continuity or predictability in a child’s relationship with
important others such as peers, extended family
members, siblings but particularly with parents
▪ Observational learning is crucial in the development of
children’s aggressive behaviour as children will imitate
these aggressive behaviours that they see around
them

11. What are some other non-violent forms of
discipline that parents can use with their
children?

12.  3 influences:
1. Genetic influence – nature vs. nurture
2. Peer influence
3. Macro-level influence
Discussion:
Can you think of any other influences that may
influence a child’s aggressive behaviour?

13.  Emotionally harsh and overly punitive
parenting is a by-product of children’s
coercive actions
 Adults who feel powerless regard children as
hostile and threatening
 Aggressive children lack a ‘sense of
containment’

14.  Committed compliance – children appear to
accept parents agenda on their own
 Situational compliance – children although
essentially cooperative, do not appear to embrace
wholeheartedly the parental agenda

15.  Cavell and Strand outline 10 principles to
guide parent based interventions for families
with aggressive children
 Goal is to suggest a paradigmatic shift in how
researchers and practitioners think about the
therapeutic task of working with aggressive
children and the parents

16. 1. Long term socialization of aggressive children
takes precedence over the short term
management of behaviours
2. Parent- child relationship is a useful vehicle for
socializing aggressive children
3. Socializing relationships provide aggressive
children, over time with emotional acceptance,
behavioural containment and prosocial values

17. 4. Ratio of emotional acceptance to
behavioural containment is a key parameter
of the socializing relationship
5. Characteristics of the parent, child and
ecology surrounding the parent-child
relationship can affect the degree to which
socializing relationships are established and
maintained

18. 6. Primary goal of parent based interventions
for aggressive children is helping parents
establish and sustain a socializing
relationship
7. Behavioural containment begins with strict
limits on aggressive, antisocial behaviour
8. Emotional acceptance begins with an implicit
message of belonging

19. 9. Prosocial values begin with explicit
statements against antisocial behaviour
10. Effective parent based interventions for
aggressive children are multi-systematic

20. The purpose of parent based interventions for
aggressive children such as the PMT is to help
parents establish and sustain a socializing
relationship, one that takes into account the
unique characteristics of the parent, child and
the child-rearing context.

21. Metaphors of Bidirectionality in
Parent-Child Relations.

22.  children cognitively construct their
knowledge (Piaget)
 infant shapes the child-rearing practices of
the parents (Rheingold)
 parent-child relationships were both a
product of and a context for parent-child
interactions (Hinde)

23.  We do not have ready made cultural
metaphors for bilateral perspectives on
parent-child relations
 Many of the concepts of parenting are
summarized in unidirectional cultural
metaphors that facilitate a unidirectional

24. Western and Japanese proverbs and
aphorisms concerning parent- child relation

25. “Like mother, “Chip off the old “An apple
“Spare the rod and
like block” does not fall
spoil the child”
daughter” far from tree”

26. Unilateral or Unidirectional conception of
socialization
PARENT pj CHILD

27. The metaphor of Rice Farming
<Shitsuke>

28. “A parent’s hearts gets lost in children”
“children grow up somehow even without
parents”
“I only gave birth to your shape, not to the
heart”
PARENT CHILD

29. What type of parenting style do you think is
more efficient in child-rearing?

30.  Early socialization research used
unidirectional approach to understand
parent-child interaction
 Limitations with the unidirectional research
led to bidirectional research

31.  Bidirectional processes can be understood
through three categories:
1) Automatic processes
2) Thoughtful processes
3) Mutual processes

32. 1. Reaction:
 response to stimulus
2. Script:
 Parent-child interactions is predetermined
 A coherent sequence of events expected by
the individual

33. 1. Proaction:
 Conceives of parents as engaging in future-
oriented behaviour in order to prevent
problems before they occur
2. Reciprocity:
 Behavioral exchanges in parent-child
interaction
 Interacting partners will attempt to rationally
maximize rewards and minimize cost (p.430)

34. 3. Adaptation:
 Provides an alternative to conception of
parenting
 Parents adapt their thoughts and behaviour
to the changing context of their children’s
development
4.Negotiation:
 Where people disagree and attempt to
resolve their differences by using social
strategies

35. 5. Relationship:
 Formed overtime
through social
interaction
 Integrate cognition
and behaviour

36.  Most models of parent-child interactions and
relationship have not developed much
beyond the metaphorical stage
 Scientific metaphors help increase the
strengths and limitations of the models
 Important to explore the potential of
metaphor in the dissemination of new
knowledge

37. Should the
metaphors be
combined together
to have a full sense
of parent-child
interaction or are
the effective
individually?