Principles and Practice of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy in Working with Parents of Young Children with Behaviour Disorder

Abstract

This paper describes a pragmatic approach using cognitive-behaviour therapy (CBT), aimed to assist professionals who work with young children and their families in the community. The primary emphasis is to strengthen confidence in parenting. Parents often have dysfunctional cognitions leading to unreasonable expectations of themselves or of their child. Restucturing such negative thoughts and attitudes of parents is considered as an essential step, in conjunction with improving parent-child communication and behaviour management of children. Behaviour management has three main components: focussing on the positive behaviour, ignoring negative behaviour if not dangerous, and the use of special time. Positive reinforcement is a key element that runs through all these strategies.