10 Common Parent Training Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)
Common Parent Training Errors and How to Avoid Them
1. Not building rapport with families before you begin teaching anything. If you start to try to train parents without first developing a trusting, open, and empathetic relationship, you are going nowhere fast. When you are in the room with a parent and a child, you are not the expert. You might see things a certain way. You might observe how problem behavior is created and maintained. You might know how mom or dad ought to respond and behavior. But you are not the expert. The parent is the expert of their child. It is your job to show your families complete empathy and understanding. To make their life better and easier and wholer and richer. If you do not take the time to get to know the child and the parent before diving in with instructions, you will not be an effective parent coach. Start with compassion and relationship building. It doesn’t matter how many letters you have after your name. When someone trusts you and believes you have their best interests at heart, they will start to listen to what you have to say.
2. Not using BST to teach parents new skills. We all know BST is the best way to teach anyone anything. Most likely this is how you were trained in ABA skills, how you are training your behavior techs, and how you are teaching your clients. Don't forget, it is a great teaching tool for parents! See our training on How to Use BST to Train Parents for more ideas!
3. Letting parents practice errors. This is why BST is important. We want to jump in and stop errors before they develop into a habit. We always want to be able to speak up when we see a parent responding to something incorrectly or prompting the child too quickly. Errors impede learning. Sometimes staff allow this because they feel too awkward or hesitant to correct the parent. But just like we prompt and shape our client’s behaviors, we must prompt and shape our parents behaviors. You are teaching the parent a new behavior, and you need to be able to provide support and feedback regularly.
4. Expecting parents to read your mind. It is uncomfortable and difficult to provide feedback to a parent in their own home. It feels odd to tell a parent how to parent. However, I have seen too many staff ignore big issues with caregivers because they are too afraid of the confrontation, correction, or just assume the parent knows what they are supposed to do and is choosing not to do it. You are in the home to teach the child, yes, but you are also there to guide the parent and model what they should be doing outside of session. Provide training often, review what you are doing, narrate your behavior, explain, explain, explain. Even the best parents in the world can’t read your mind.
5. Forgetting to teach parents about reinforcement. It can be really difficult for families to get the same results outside of session if they aren’t using reinforcement effectively. Train families how to reinforce their child and remind them often. Teach families how to continually build rapport with their child and teach when their child has their “learning switch” on and is happy, relaxed, and engaged. Train families to do structured play times each day. Teach families how to praise their child. Many parents do not understand this, and then when they place the same demands, they don’t get the same response! Take the time to make sure that families understand behavior goes where reinforcement flows.
6. Not setting up clear expectations from the start. Newly minted BCBAs, if I could give you one piece of advice before opening a new client, it would be to explain to parents the commitment that ABA is. Ensure all parties are on board, interested in receiving training, participating in sessions, and learning from your expertise. Don't let parents use you as a babysitter. Set clear expectations of what parents need to do to be part of services. Include information around what parent participation looks like (get this in writing) consequences for missed sessions (again in writing) and operationally define (in parent friendly language) what parents are responsible for.
7. Using ABA jargon. We all know BCBAs are guilty of this. If you understand something well, you should be able to explain it simply. If you can't, you don't understand it well enough. A parent training is not the time and place for you to show how smart you are. When explaining behavior plans, goals, strategies, or consequences, use language that is accessible to your families. Be clear, specific, and simple. Ask open ended questions and engage in discussions with your families.
8. Choosing your own parent education goals for the parents. When you develop goals for your client, you should include goals for your client’s family as well. What should they be able to do at the end of this? Make sure the family is involved in selecting goals as well. You should choose socially valid goals which means that the caregivers work with you to choose goals that are important to them and helpful for them. By working together on creating goals, you can help families keep realistic, age appropriate goals in mind.
9. Lowering parent expectations. I see this a lot when staff provide a few trainings at the start of services, and then stop. After clients have been in services for a while, it's easy to forget that parents need ongoing training and support to ensure skills are generalizing across environments. It is common to get into a rhythm in services and to become close to the families we serve. Don't let the close relationship distract you from the fact that parents need to continue to observe sessions, receive ongoing training, and be pushed to practice skills, think critically, and learn how to problem solve when it comes to problem behavior. Keep expectations high to ensure high quality services throughout your time with a family.
10. Blaming parents for not learning. If the parents do not see similar changes in behavior and gains in skills, parent training goals need to be modified. We would never blame our clients for not learning, we need to keep the same thing in mind with our parents. Do they need additional support? Have you used BST with the family? Are there multiple caregivers that need to be trained? Identify barriers that are impacting parent training progress and work with the family to come up with an effective parent training plan. If the family is not interested in training and learning these skills, the child is most likely not going to make the long-term gains with ABA and may want to reconsider if ABA is right for them.
11. Forgetting to take data on parent behavior. If you want to have a discussion with a family about their level or participation, use of ABA strategies, cancellations, being late, giving in to problem behavior, etc. you better have some solid data to back you up. It makes it a lot easier to have the hard conversation when you can pull up a graph and show the parent that there have been 0 instances of parent participation in the last 30 days. It is a lot easier to confront a parent on their cancellations if you can document and show them each instance of a cancelation, last minute reschedule, or times the family was late. We do not start and stop data collection with our clients. Use the same strategies with parents and then you can make judgements and decisions based off of data and facts and not thoughts or hurt feelings.
