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Is good parenting natural or learned? Research by Robert A. Fox, Ph.D., is demonstrating that committed parents, trained in intervention techniques, can have a profound effect in limiting young children’s antisocial behavior.

Fox, professor of counseling psychology, is director of the Behavior Clinic, a mental health clinic for toddlers with developmental disabilities and significant behavior issues. He and a team of graduate students help parents understand and manage children’s challenging behaviors, from not listening and temper tantrums to throwing things to hurting oneself or others.

“The field of infant mental health is relatively new,” Fox says. “We know early intervention can have a positive impact in changing a child’s behavior patterns, thus preventing future, more serious problems.”

The clinic uses direct observations of child-parent interactions, child behavior assessments, parental interviews and self-report measures. The most common diagnosis is oppositional defiant disorder.

A licensed psychologist and author of Parenting Young Children: A Facilitator’s Guide, Fox developed an in-home therapy program. “We concentrate on training the parents — teaching them how to enjoy their children through non-directive play, showing them how to reinforce a child’s strengths to encourage positive behavior and provide consistent limits and reasonable consequences for problem behavior,” he says.

Fox and his team serve approximately 100 families annually, making more than 1,000 home visits. The average is 12 home visits, but it can be as many as 30. “Our challenge is to get and keep parents committed,” Fox admits. “If they complete four or five sessions, they begin to see behavioral changes in their children. Then they’re hooked.”

After intervention, 70 to 80 percent of the children lose their psychiatric diagnosis. Fox is studying whether the behavioral changes are sustained long-term. He is also working on new assessment tools. “We need instruments for early identification of young children with behavioral and emotional problems that are appropriate for low-income, under-educated parents,” he explains.

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Why child's play is history