Comportamentos antissociais na infância: proposta e avaliação do programa aprendendo sobre filhos

Abstract

Children's antisocial behaviors, characterized by behavioral patterns of disobedience, aggression and opposite behavior, constitute a risk factor for psychosocial adaptation in adolescence and adulthood. In general, these problems are the main reasons of complaints from parents and educators during childhood. In order to help caregivers to deal with these difficulties, several intervention programs are developed. In children with early ages, the effectiveness of restrictions made directly with parents is noteworthy. In Brazil, despite the expressive number of publications, there are still few studies whose purpose is to certify the effectiveness of these programs focusing on familiar variables of a cognitive-behavioral nature. Most of the existing models in this country have been imported or are still in the early stages of development, with little robust designs and limited to isolated variables. Thus, this is the general objective of the proportion of a training program for parents with a focus on preventing child antisocial behavior. To this end, three studies were developed. Study 1 analyzed the psychometric properties of the Parental Competence Scale, the Parental Stress Scale, the Strenghts and Difficulties Questionnaire, as well as a relationship between the studied variables (parental styles; parental competence; parental stress; children's strenghts and behavioral difficulties; and child antisocial behavior) in a sample of 214 mothers in the city of Fortaleza-CE. Study 2 presented a pilot version of the intervention program carried out with 8 mothers linked to a public school in Fortaleza-CE. Study 3 brought an improved version of the program and evaluated the intervention, through a randomized controlled study with 23 mothers randomly divided into the control group (n = 11) and intervention (n = 12). The results found pointed to the validity and confiability of the instruments, as well as the significant relationships between the variables studied. In addition, it provided the assessment and evaluation of the Program “Learning about Children”, based on cognitive-behavioral therapy, composed of 9 weekly meetings and with good recent results of application in the Brazilian context. Despite the present, it is concluded that this is an important resource to apply public policies aimed at the family and that are intended to promote the child's psychosocial development.