Parent Management Training

Parent management training (PMT), also known as behavioral parent training or simply parent training, is a family of treatment programs that aims to change parenting behaviors, teaching parents positive reinforcement methods for improving preschool and school-age children's behavior problems such as aggression, hyperactivity, temper tantrums and difficulty following directions. It is one of the most investigated treatments for disruptive behavior, particularly oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder, effective at reducing child disruptive behavior and improving parental mental health, though existing research lacks knowledge of its mechanisms of change and long-term outcome studies, and it can be harder to implement when parents cannot fully participate due to psychopathology, limited cognitive capacity, high partner conflict or inability to attend weekly sessions. PMT was initially developed in the 1960s by child psychologists studying how to change children's disruptive behavior by intervening on parent behavior, inspired by operant conditioning and applied behavioral analysis; treatment typically lasts several months and focuses on parents learning to provide positive reinforcement such as praise and rewards for appropriate behavior while setting proper limits, including removing attention for inappropriate behavior.