Confident Parenting: Survival Skill Training Program - Detailed Report

• Pinpointing and Describing Behavior: Parents are taught how to pinpoint the specific behaviors that they would like to see their children engage in more frequently and those they would like to see less of. This pinpointing involves not only being specific about observable behaviors, but indicating where and when the parent would like to see more or less of them (at bedtime, in the morning, at the dinner table, etc.)
• Behavior-Specific Praise: Behavior-Specific Praise consists of seven behavioral components: (1) looking at the child, (2) moving close to the child, (3) smiling at the child, (4) saying positive things to the child, (5) praising the child's behavior and not the child, (6) being physically affectionate with the child, and (7) moving into action immediately upon recognizing desirable behavior.
• Mild Social Disapproval: Mild Social Disapproval is intended to decrease the repeated misbehaviors of children and establish limits to the child's behaviors. It also consists of seven behavioral components: (1) looking at the child, (2) moving close the child, (3) a disapproving facial expression, (4) a brief verbal comment or command, (5) low intensity, (6) non-verbal gesture consistent with disapproval, and (7) immediate delivery. The verbal component is to be disapproving in content, but not demeaning or threatening. The emphasis is on simple and brief commands such as "Stop that!" rather than "You're a naughty girl" or "If you don't stop doing that, I'm going to get the strap."
• Ignoring: The essence of this ignoring skill is that it be used consistently in response to the behaviors that it seeks to reduce. It consists of five behavioral components: (1) looking away form the child, (2) moving away from the child, (3) neutral facial expression, (4) ignoring the child's verbalizations, and (5) ignoring immediately upon noticing the misbehavior.
• Time Out: Time Out is a form of punishment that is used when all else fails and the child's behavior has exceeded reasonable limits. The child is removed from social interaction and attention. The Time Out is explained to the child as having to go to a "cooling off" place for a short period of time when her/his behavior has gone too far.
• Special Incentive System: This system consists of having the child earn points, stars, or tokens for engaging in specified desirable behaviors. The child turns these in for various tangible rewards and/or special privileges. The rewards or privileges are chosen from a Reward Menu which is negotiated cooperatively by the parent and the child. The components of Special Incentive Programs are: (1) defining desirable behavior, (2) counting the target behavior(s), (3) creating the reward menu, (4) establishing the exchange ratio, i.e., how many stars for what rewards, (5) charting of behaviors, (6) praise for positive behavior changes, (7) program adjustments, and (8) phasing out the program.

The practice lacks adequate published, peer-reviewed research to empirically determine efficacy; however, it was identified by the topical expert as a program being used in this area, or it is being marketed and/or used in California with children receiving services from child welfare or related systems and their parents/caregivers.

There are currently no published, peer-reviewed research studies on Confident Parenting: Survival Skill Training Program.

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