Parent Management Training

Parent Management Training (PMT) is a programme that trains parents to manage their children's behavioural problems at home and at school. PMT works to correct maladaptive parent-child interactions especially as they apply to discipline. PMT utilizes social learning techniques based upon behaviour analysis and operant conditioning to alter both the parents' and the child’s behaviour to decrease the child’s oppositional or antisocial behavioural patterns. PMT has been used as an adjunct therapy in Autism Spectrum Disorder, Conduct Disorder, Down syndrome, Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD).

The Oregon Social Learning Group developed and conducted most of the early research on parent management training in the late 1960s. Off shoots of the model were similarly developed by Conne Hamf and such models led to the development of a hybrid model known as Parent–child interaction therapy. PMT was elaborated in the 1980s and applied to children with severe aggressive and antisocial behavior by Alan E. Kazdin, Ph.D. The work began at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and continued from 1989 at the Yale Parenting Center and Child Conduct Clinic at Yale University, where it is currently ongoing. The model follows applied behavior analysis with emphasis on antecedents, behaviors, consequences and repeated practice.

Treatment sessions include instruction in social learning principles and techniques. The therapist instruct the parents on how to define, observe, and record their children's behaviour such as fighting and having temper tantrums and then how to apply appropriate methods of positive reinforcement and punishment.

Positive reinforcement, the key element of PMT, is given to the child via various techniques such as giving the child increased attention and praise and awarding points for positive behaviour. Punishment for negative behaviour is meted out via methods such as giving time outs, verbal reprimands and loss of privileges such as watching television or playing video games.

Contingencies are indirectly affected as well by training parents to communicate better about contingencies and problem solve troubled situations