Promoting Positive Parenting of Teenagers

David Neville, Liz King

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781857424171
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351908290
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

Following on from the success of Promoting Positive Parenting, David Neville, Dick Beak and Liz King have now written this book which looks at the particular problems and challenges associated with working with parents of teenagers. The Centre for Fun and Families (from which the authors hail) is a national voluntary organization which was established in 1990. Its objective is to empower parents who are experiencing behaviour and communication difficulties with their children and young people, through the use of group work programmes. This book shares with readers the theoretical ideas that underpin the work of the Centre and provides a practical guide of how to undertake such a programme, thereby enabling the reader to react sensitively and productively to unforeseen circumstances which are inevitable when running groups. Professionals coming to these methods for the first time can work through the text safe in the knowledge that these are tried and tested ways of working, which are known to be effective. At a time when attention is focused on the importance of parenting and the way in which children are brought up and guided into adulthood, no practitioner working in this field should ignore the message within these covers.

Part I
The background to the Centre for Fun and Families

1 The development of the Centre

Defining the terms used in this book

This book, Promoting Positive Parenting of Teenagers, has been written to give people who work with families and young people a guide to the group programme called 'living with teenagers', developed by the staff of the Centre for Fun and Families. It is important, at the start of this guide, to offer a few definitions of the terms used throughout the book so that the reader can proceed with a common understanding of the language employed. The most important terms you will come across are 'living with teenagers groups', 'social learning theory' and the 'Centre for Fun and Families'. We will start with a brief description of each of these terms.

What is a ‘living with teenagers group’?

A living with teenagers group is a seven-week parent training programme designed to help parents whose young people are displaying a range of behaviour difficulties such as aggression, defiance, school refusal, bad language, staying out late, stealing, drug or alcohol abuse. The main objective of the group is to apply social learning theory or behavioural principles to individual family circumstances. It is designed to help parents make sense of what their teenagers are doing and why. It is intended to give practical, down-to-earth suggestions to assist them in changing their teenager's behaviour and to allow them to regain parenthood as a positive or 'fun' experience.

What is social learning theory?

Chapter 4 gives a detailed account of social learning theory. However, the basic assumption of social learning theory is that social behaviour is learned and can be changed by altering the way parents respond to and manage their teenager's behaviour. In simple terms, if parents want to encourage good behaviour they should positively reinforce or reward it, and if they want to reduce unwanted behaviour they should discourage it through a range of methods referred to as 'punishments'. These methods include ignoring, withdrawal of privileges, and so on, which have been shown to be more effective than physical punishments. A range of other means of teaching acceptable social behaviours include modelling, prompting and giving clear instructions. In addition, relationships within families can be improved by attention to skills in listening, communication, negotiation, problem-solving and the use of agreements.

What is the Centre for Fun and Families?

The Centre for Fun and Families is a national voluntary organisation with charitable status (Charity no. 328640), which was established in 1990. The Centre is based in Leicester (25 Shanklin Drive, Knighton, Leicester LE2 3RH, phone [phone]). The objective of the Centre is to support parents who are experiencing behaviour and communication difficulties with their children and teenagers through the development and promotion of effective groupwork programmes. The Centre offers programmes for parents with young children and parents with teenage children. The programme for parents with younger children is called 'Fun and Families', and the programme for parents with teenage children is called 'Living with Teenagers'.

Within Leicestershire the Centre runs a regular programme of groups for parents in partnership with other agencies such as health visitors, social workers, schools and voluntary organisations. Outside Leicestershire the Centre provides training and consultancy services to both statutory and voluntary agencies throughout the country on the setting up and running of these groupwork programmes. To support these programmes the Centre has produced a range of resources, including 11 booklets, video, a relaxation tape for parents, sets of fun stickers and albums and a parent's guide. The Centre also offers student placements for students on Diploma/MA in Social Work courses to allow them to experience the planning and running of the Centre's groupwork programmes.

The Centre is committed to providing services to people of any race, sex, religion, disability and sexual orientation and has an anti-discriminatory practice policy and action plan.

Information on the details of resources and services available from the Centre are given in Chapter 13 and the Appendices at the end of this book.

The history of the development of the Centre

It can be imagined that the development of a major group programme and the formation of a new voluntary organisation did not occur rapidly or by chance. The ideas came together gradually, piece by piece, between 1987 and 1990 as a result of the convergence of a number of developments.

Development of the fun and families group programme

In 1987 a number of social services staff in south Leicestershire were interested in two themes. First, the application of methods derived from social learning theory were thought to be practical and effective in work with families with child behaviour difficulties. Second, there was an interest both in a community social work approach designed to assist clients in using their own resources and in seeking out resources in the community, such as other agencies, which may have a common interest in helping families.

In terms of the help available to families, health visitors featured prominently. Even before groupwork projects were devised, liaison with health visitors had developed so that meetings and shared workshops were a regular feature. This time spent getting to know, understand and establish a common theoretical base was very significant. Once these simple behavioural ideas were put into practice with parents, a reputation was created in the community that there were practitioners available who could actually help. Equally important, the advice was not overly intrusive and was seen to be effective. The result of this was that more referrals were generated than either the social services staff or health visitors could cope with.

Therefore, in 1987 the first discussions began about setting up groups which could cater for families experiencing difficulty in managing their children's behaviour. Drawing on research and experience, an eight-week programme (later refined to seven weeks) was devised during which parents could learn about and practice techniques with a proven track record in changing child behaviours.

However good any programme is, it would inevitably have a limited impact unless it was presented in an attractive fashion. Therefore, those involved took great pains to offer potential referral sources such as doctors and schools with the programme details and research references so that a high level of credibility was established. Additionally, efforts were made to attract potential clients. An attractive invitation was sent rather than a letter. The first session was to be social with wine and food provided together with the opportunity for participants to comment on the proposed programme and suggest any additions or changes they felt necessary.

The name for the group was also agonised over, and there was a wish to have an attractive title that made the objectives of the group clear. It was recognised that most participants had largely lost the sense of how much fun parents can obtain from bringing up children and were caught in a downward spiral of recrimination, frustration and helplessness. Consequently the title 'fun and families groups' was born to reflect the group's serious objective of helping families to recapture the lost sense of the fun in bringing up their children.

This aim was pursued with enthusiasm and parents in the early groups taught the organisers a great deal and helped to shape subsequent programmes. Each parent is the only real expert so far as their own child is concerned and it quickly became evident that more time had to be allocated to considering individual circumstances. More time was also allowed for informal discussion (providing it was guided to keep on task) between parents. The encouragement parents drew from each other was also noted as a major feature of the group's effectiveness. Gradually through the feedback from evaluations of the group, the programme was refined to a seven-week programme in which the minimum necessary theoretical ideas could be presented and the parents' own strengths brought to bear on choosing the best way to achieve positive change for the whole family.

The development of the Centre

Developing an effective group programme that empowers parents in partnership with another agency while working within a busy social services department is a major challenge in itself. Taking this further to develop a completely new voluntary organisation was an even greater challenge and required a unique set of circumstances to prevail.

By 1989 the fun and families group programme had been refined and improved to the point that it had become locally known to parents as an effective arid popular group programme to join. In addition, the parent support groups, made up of parents who had already experienced the programme, had felt that similar groups should be set up in other parts of the country. Consequently, they wrote several articles in the local press. Furthermore, Andy Gill, one of the co-founders, wrote an article in the social work press (1989a). The result of all this publicity was that Dick Beak, Andy Gill and the health visitors who had been running the groups began to receive requests for information from agencies all over the country. It rapidly became obvious that the concept of fun and families groups was one that people wanted to know about and a variety of agencies were interested in running similar groups. However, the problem for those involved was how to respond to this while working full time in a statutory setting.

Within the social services department that employed the Centre cofounders there were two ominous forces at work. First, a further reorganisation was pending. Their memory of the previous 1986 reorganisation was that front line services were in some disarray for 12-18 months afterwards and all developmental work was put on hold. Second, the effects of successive Government cutbacks and local policy changes were leading to a situation in which any work with families, other than child protection work, would be impossible to sustain. On the positive side, there was a growing confidence that voluntary organisations would be funded by social services departments, in line with guidance given in the Children Act (1989).

The combination of the above two factors led the co-founders to test the viability of launching a voluntary organisation by producing a questionnaire to all social services departments and members of the Behavioural Social Work Group. They were extremely surprised to find that the response was more than double the expected response for a postal questionnaire, and the replies were all very positive. Taking the idea further, the co-founders held a national conference in Leicester in February 1990. The conference was oversubscribed, attracting over 80 people including almost 20 parents. From these efforts to test demand it was obvious that there was a tremendous interest in the services the Centre hoped to offer.

A further factor of considerable importance was that the three co-founders had worked together since 1987. While all three had different interests and styles of working, they recognised the value of each other's contribution to the concept of the Centre. Consequently, very good working relationships had developed which were going to be essential in guiding a new organisation through the uncharted waters that lay ahead.

Having established, in principle, that the formation of a voluntary organisation was viable, the co-founders needed to solve the last piece of the puzzle; how to fund the organisation. They knew that any new organisation would have high initial set-up costs because of the need to acquire equipment and to publicise and promote the organisation. In addition, the Centre sought to provide training and consultancy, but these could not be relied upon to give a regular, consistent source of income. After considerable searching and discussion it was decided that each co-founder would seek some part-time employment that would give a regular source of income. By March 1990 Dick Beak and David Neville had been accepted to work on the Leicestershire Guardian ad litem Panel and Andy Gill was still searching for a part-time post. The decision was taken to launch the Centre on 1 June 1990, with Dick and David starting in June and Andy joining slightly later in November 1990.

The development of the living with teenagers programme

It was evident from the consistently positive evaluations of the fun and families group programmes that parents were highly satisfied with the outcomes of that programme, in terms of the reduction in the number and frequency of child behaviour difficulties. Inevitably parents and professionals began to ask if there was a similar programme for parents of teenagers. Examination showed there was a very clear demand from parents who seemed to find teenage behaviour difficulties even more embarrassing and difficult to deal with than the difficulties presented by younger children.

There was a very obvious need for work with parents of teenagers because most of the young people entering care were in the 14-16-year age range. In addition, a very large proportion of the resources of social services departments were deployed in working with families with teenagers to try to keep such families together. Indeed, many professionals came across increasing numbers of families where, because of rising divorce and remarriage rates, families were coping with both teenagers and toddlers.

Finally, it was apparent that there was a lack of any groupwork programmes dealing directly with influencing teenage behaviour and negotiating for change. Most parenting programmes tended to focus on the under eight age range. At the time of writing the Centre was not aware of any other formally established groupwork programme that was dedicated specifically to parents of teenagers, though there were examples of good practice in working in groups with parents of teenagers dealing with more general issues at a discussion level.

In response to this evidence of need, the Centre staff commenced some development work on a groupwork programme for parents of teenagers during 1991 to 1992. The first step was made when the living with teenagers programme was planned, and in the development meetings the staff became convinced that the main theoretical elements of social learning theory were equally as relevant as they are in the fun and families programme. However, the significant difference that was identified in working with parents of teenagers was that the task of helping parents with the skills of listening, communicating, negotiation and problem solving and being able to use agreements needed to be added to the other existing elements already successfully used to very good effect in the fun and families programme.

During 1993 the Centre's first attempts to run a living with teenagers group began. This was assisted by some finance offered by the Tudor Trust, specifically targeted to develop the programme for work with parents of teenagers. The first group was run in Hinckley in partnership with education welfare officers. The take-up for the first group was small, with only four parents attending. This first group was successful for those who attended but there were two areas that required further work.

It was evident that the take-up by parents of the opportunity to join the group was limited in comparison to the dozen or so parents whose names were put forward. Resistance, it seemed, appeared to come from two sources. First, parents seemed to consider that there was a keenly felt 'stigma' from being viewed as a 'failed' parent. This seemed to be even more pronounced for parents of teenagers since the parents had had responsibility for the care of their young people for between fourteen and sixteen years. They therefore felt that they had to bear some responsibility for their teenagers' behaviour and attitudes. Second, another response that seemed unduly negati...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword by Tom Butler, Bishop of Leicester
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction by Professor Martin Herbert
• Part I The background to the Centre for Fun and Families
• Part II Theoretical background to practice
• Part III The seven-week living with teenagers programme
• Part IV Follow-up after the group
• Appendix A: Teenage behaviour and communication rating scale
• Appendix B: Sample press release
• Appendix C: Sample certificate
• Appendix D: Summary of resources
• References and further reading