Over-chastisement, Child Non-compliance and Parenting Skills: A Behavioural Interventiaon by a Family Centre Social Worker

Summary This single-case study describes a behavioural interventionby a Family Centre social worker with a family whose two eldestchildren had been registered on the Child Protection Registerfollowing an incident of over-chastisement by their mother.Working in partnership with the parents. a behavioural assessmentand intervention was undertaken over a four month periood. Theassessment suggested that child non-compliance was a centralproblem behaviour and that mother and child were caught in atrap where each negatively reinforced the other's aversive,coercive behaviour, since these behaviours were successful interminating the other's unwanted or aversive behaviours. Theintervention aimed to increase child compliance and reduce childdefiance using a positive reinforcement programme, and to increasethe mother's child management skills using a parent trainingprogramme. The results showed that child compliance with maternalinstructions increased significantly and that this was maintainedat eleven month follow-up. Also, mother's use of command negativedecreased significantly; this improvement was also maintainedat eleven month follow-up.