Helping Parents Solve Their Children's Behavior Problems

Parents are the most important people in their children's lives. Yet their potential as agents of behavioral change has barely been tapped. A growing body of evidence supports the cost-effective contention that parents can be trained to participate in resolving their children's behavior problems by applying individualized techniques based on learning principles.
Behavioral counseling is the name of the process that takes up the popular "minimax" challenge–to bring about maximal change with a minimal expenditure of professional energies. Drs. Schaefer and Eisen, experienced proponents of the process, have selected practical articles from the professional literature to help therapists help parents cope with common problems such as: nightmares, separation anxiety, disruptive behaviors, habit disorders (thumbsucking, bedwetting), dawdling, sibling rivalry, noncompliance.
Behavioral counseling–short-term, squarely focused, empirically sound–is becoming the ally of choice in every mental health professional's race to make substantial gains before the client's insurance runs out. Helping Parents Solve Their Children's Behavior Problems is the comprehensive resource that will make the co-therapeutic partnership work.

Charles Schaefer, Ph.D., is professor of psychology at Fairleigh Dickinson University and director of its Center for Psychological Services in Hackensack, New Jersey. Andrew R. Eisen, Ph.D., is associate professor of clinical psychology at Fairleigh Dickinson University and director of its Child Anxiety Disorders Clinic.