Definition

     This entry delves into the parenting literature and reveals the complexities, perspectives, and multiple expressions of parenting challenging childhood behavior that distress or negatively impact the parent-child relationship so that we can better understand how to support families who are struggling to cope. The entry specifically focuses on the period of transition to school for children aged five to eight years. This transition can illuminate vulnerabilities previously hidden as children attempt to navigate the demands of their unfamiliar environment, meaning that parents can experience distress and emotional challenges. The entry explores the various expressions of relationally challenging behavior and comments on the intersectionality and reciprocity of explicit and implicit expressions of affect such as frustration and anxiety. To gain context, the entry examines common antecedents associated with relationally challenging behavior, such as academic comparison, forming friendships, hidden neurodiverse development, neglect, attachment dysfunction, and family conflict. Qualitative literature enriches understanding and identifies problems such as parental distress related to social stigma and minority stress and reveals specific struggles, including stress, related to homeschooling children with special educational needs, homeschooling during the recent pandemic, single parenting, grandparenting, parenting neurodiverse children, and the triangulated tensions that exist between the parent, the child, and the school. Holding in mind these diverse and context-orientated perspectives, this entry examines research that evaluates helpfulness and illuminates deficiencies of popular structured parent programs. Lastly, the entry identifies and illuminates the need to know more about the ways in which parent programs work, and it is anticipated that this new knowledge will help practitioners to better respond to the complexities of need and expectations of families who struggle to cope with relationally challenging behavior.

General Introduction

     This entry first offers a brief overview of the central theories that support parenting programs, parenting, and the ways that parenting and children’s development and adjustment relate.

     Parental socialization recognizes parents as an all-important force in the socialization process, shaping and molding the values and behaviors of the child [1], and the centrality of the parent as mediator, interpreter, reflector, and moderator of the child’s internal cognitive and emotional state of mind cannot be underestimated [2]. Parents are seen as influencers, guides, teachers, and indirect socializers in their capacity as role models, supported by social learning theory [3], and as social managers, taking charge of the child’s social experiences. Parental socialization informs and educates infants and young children in societal norms, expectations, rules, and values that influence behavior. Children learn how to socialize within this early familiar framework, which helps them adjust to societal norms and expectations. Furthermore, parents are seen as moderators to the risk effects that deprived neighborhoods, poverty, and adverse life events have on children’s emotional and behavioral development [4]. This process is guided using a combination of parental styles and practices, such as authoritative parenting, which is associated with a securely attached relationship with the main caregiver [5,6].

Conclusions

     This entry highlights the breadth and diversity of the parent caregiver population that parenting programs endeavor to help. Structured parenting programs tend to offer a generalist approach that integrate strategies from social learning, behaviorism, and attachment that endeavor to assist parents in managing and coping with a wide range of relational childhood challenging behaviors. Whilst evidence repeatedly demonstrates that parenting programs work, with positive measurable outcomes for both child behaviors and parental stress, studies have tended to rely on parent reports, whilst future research should aim to include the experiences of all involved. The reviewed literature enriches understanding and identifies problems such as parent distress related to social stigma and minority stress and reveals specific struggles, including stress relating to homeschooling children with special educational needs and during the recent pandemic, as well as single parenting, grandparenting, parenting neurodiverse children, and the triangulated tensions that exist between the parent, the child, and the school. Holding in mind these diverse and contextorientated perspectives, this entry illuminates deficiencies of popular structured parenting programs and has identified a need to know more about the ways in which parenting programs work. It is anticipated that this reviewed knowledge will help practitioners to better reflect on the complexities of needs and expectations of families who struggle to cope with relationally challenging behavior.