Concurrent Parent and Child Therapy Groups

In years past researchers have found that parenting self-efficacy is an important potential contributor to the emotional and social developmental of children. PSE is defined as beliefs or judgments about one’s competency or ability to successfully carry out one’s parenting roles.

In one Study at BYU a professor of psychology, examined parenting self-efficacy and how it related to therapy outcomes in a large group of youth receiving outpatient therapy at a community mental health clinic.

Three aspects of PSE were studied: parental connection between the parent and child, the effect of social processes on a child’s development of identity, efficacy and worth, and parental control of behavior, and behavioral influence. What the study found was very interesting: during the course of child therapy parents’ levels of self-efficacy improved as their children’s symptoms improved.

Parents’ levels of self-efficacy did not predict how much their children’s social skills would improve, rather, regardless of their initial level of PSE, their self-reported feelings of efficacy increased at the same time as their children’s symptoms were decreasing.

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