The effects of parent education and authoritarian attitudes on parenting skills

The role of parenting is multidimensional as it is a complex and diverse experience. Parenting has been described as one of the most difficult tasks with the least amount of preparation. Perhaps it is for this reason that much concern is given to parent education and intervention. The types of intervention that are available to parents range from open-ended discussion groups (Auerbach 1968, Hereford 1963) to highly structured and systematic training programs aimed at specific targeted behaviors (Carkhuff, 1971). Between these two polarities are several popular standardized programs. These include Parent Effectiveness Training (Gordon, 1970), Adlerian Parent Study Groups (Berrett, 1975), Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (Dinkmeyer & McKay, 197 6), Parent Involvement Program (McGuiness & Glasser, 1978), and many others. These interventions are directed toward teaching parents specific techniques from a particular theoretical orientation which explicitly or implicitly holds itself up as the one true approach. The "do's" of one approach are often the "don'ts" of another.