Keywords to optimize the article for: behavioral parent training
Around 62% of American children are currently undergoing medical treatment for ADHD, but that’s not enough to overcome your child’s difficulties. Dealing with ADHD is a family affair, and parents often feel overwhelmed by the extra strain it can place on their households.
Are you running out of solutions for dealing with your child’s erratic behavior? Behavioral parent training could be the answer for you. It’s an excellent evidence-based solution for dealing with the stresses of raising a child with ADHD.
What’s Involved in Behavioral Parent Training
BPT helps teach parents what they can do to redirect the erratic, impulsive, and sometimes destructive behaviors that go along with these conditions.
The aims of this parent training program include:
- Reducing children’s misbehavior
- Increasing behavior in children
- Improving parent-child interactions
- Encouraging a positive family atmosphere
It is a CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) approach that focusses on how you may be unknowingly rewarding your child’s undesirable behaviors and offering solutions.
Are You Encouraging Your Child’s Bad Behavior?
The most common example of this type of unconscious reward is giving in to the child’s demands.
Let’s say your household rule is no TV until your child has completed their homework. Yet, your child wants to watch their favorite show before they’re done. They beg, plead and ultimately throw a tantrum. Many parents give in at some stage during this performance because they simply don’t have the time and energy to deal with drama.
By avoiding this unpleasantness, you’re teaching your child that when they make things unpleasant for you, they get the result they want.
Encouraging Positive Behavior
Parent training for ADHD teaches you how to deal with situations like this in a positive and loving way with time-out, rule-setting and ignoring to discourage bad behaviors. Now, we all know that these are effective techniques for handling misbehavior. They’re a lot easier to implement when you have ongoing advice and support from a neutral third party such as a therapist.
However, there’s another side of this therapy too. No parent wants to be a cold, unfeeling dictator, so it’s important to reward your child too. That doesn’t mean you should promise them rewards in return for good behavior – that’s called bribery.
Instead, pay attention to the things your child says and does. When they perform desirable behavior on their own, reward them. They’ll soon learn that good behavior pays off.
Here’s what one mother had to say about how behavioral parent training helped her.
When combined with medication, ongoing evaluations, and a good diet, BPT can significantly reduce the negative aspects of raising a child with ADHD.
There’s Still More You Can Do
Unless you learn how to deal proactively and positively with your child’s behavior, you risk damaging your relationship with them for years to come. It’s important to do everything in your power to prevent this from happening.
Behavioral parent training is just one of the solutions we offer parents who are struggling to cope with their child’s ADHD behavior.
Get in touch for more information and assistance in this regard.
