Evidence Based Parenting Training: What Is It and What's It Got To Do With CBT‪?‬ Let's Talk About CBT

Children don't come with a manual, and parenting can be hard. What is evidence-based parenting training and how can it help? Dr Lucy Maddox interviews Sue Howson and Jane, about their experiences of delivering and receiving this intervention for parents of primary school aged children. 
 
Show Notes and Transcript
Sue and Jane both recommended this book:
The Incredible Years (R): Trouble Shooting Guide for Parents of Children Aged 3-8 Years
By Carolyn Webster-Stratton (Author)
Sue also recommended this book:
Helping the Noncompliant Child Family-Based Treatment for Oppositional Behaviour  Robert J. McMahon, Rex L.Forehand 2nd Edition Paperback (01 Sep 2005)  ISBN 978-1593852412

Websites
http://www.incredibleyears.com/
https://theministryofparenting.com/
https://www.nurturingmindsconsultancy.co.uk/
For more on CBT the BABCP website is www.babcp.com
Accredited therapists can be found at www.cbtregisteruk.com
 
Courses
The courses where Sue works are available here, and there are similar courses around the country:
https://www.reading.ac.uk/charliewaller/cwi-iapt.aspx
 
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
This episode was edited by Eliza Lomas
Transcript
Lucy:   Hello and welcome to Let’s Talk About CBT, the podcast from the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies, BABCP. This podcast is all about CBT, what it is, what it’s not and how it can be useful.
This episode is the last in the current series so we’ll be having a break for a bit, apart from a cheeky bonus episode, which is planned for a few months’ time so look out for that.
Today, I’m finding out about evidence-based parenting training. This is a type of intervention for the parents of primary school aged children. It draws on similar principles to cognitive behavioural therapy about links between thoughts, feelings, behaviours and bodily sensations and ideas from social learning theory. It also draws some ideas from child development such as attachment theory and parenting styles.
To understand more about all of this, I met with Sue Howson, parenting practitioner who works in child mental health services and Jane, a parent who has experienced the training herself.
Jane:  My name is Jane and I’ve got a little boy called Jack who is seven and he’s in Year 3.
Lucy:  And you’ve experienced evidence-based parenting training, is that right?
Jane:  Yeah, I have. It’s something called the Incredible Years. And there was a really nice lady called Sue and my school put us in touch to form a group to kind of help me manage Jack a little bit more at home.
Lucy:  So, your journey into it was that the school let you know about it?
Jane:  Yeah. Basically, I was having a few issues with Jack at home and I think it was kind of impacting on school as well. So, I was working with the special needs coordinator and she, obviously, had me, Jack and my family in mind as someone who might benefit from working a little bit with Sue.
 I was a bit nervous at first, you know, like professionals coming in, getting involved. But she was really nice and it was really beneficial.
Lucy: Is it okay to ask what sort of difficulties you were having at home, sort of what was going on?
Jane:  Yeah, I can tell you now because it’s all changed, it’s much better.
Lucy:  Oh good, that’s great to hear.
Jane:    I mean, Jack’s a lovely boy. He’s my eldest and he’s really nice and just a bit of a joy – he is now. But I think one of the main things that I was struggling with, with him, was kind of difficulties with falling asleep. In the evenings, he would always want me to fall asleep either next to him or in his bed and that was kind of impacting on our evening, mine and my husband’s quite a lot. And it was taking up a lot of time and I think evenings are quite hard because you’re so tired and you just want to go to bed.
So, that was one of the issues. And the no sleep was impacting on