PARENTING SCHEMAS AND THE PROCESS OF CHANGE

Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, Jan 2005 by Azar, Sandra T, Nix, Robert L, Makin-Byrd, Kerry N

Parents' childrearing behaviors are guided by schemas of the caregiving role, their functioning in that role, what children need in general, and what their own children are like in particular. Sometimes, however, parenting schemas can be maladaptive because they are too rigid or simple, involve inappropriate content, or are dominated by negative affect. In this article, we describe parenting schemas and provide an overview of empirical work documenting the characteristics of maladaptive parenting schemas. We review how intervention practices common to multiple therapeutic approaches (cognitive-behavior therapy, family therapy, parent training, attachment-based interventions, and psychoanalytic parent-infant psychotherapy) attempt to modify schemas to promote more optimal functioning among parents. We highlight how research in cognitive science may explain, in part, treatment effectiveness.

In this article, we present an applied cognitive science perspective on parenting. We argue that parenting schemas function as central organizing constructs in understanding parents' adaptive and problematic functioning in the caregiving role. We demonstrate how intervention techniques culled from multiple diverse therapeutic approaches, including cognitive-behavior therapy, family therapy, parent training, attachment-focused interventions, and psychoanalytically based parent-infant psychotherapy, may be similar in their effects on parenting schemas. Most techniques are designed to activate and increase the complexity of existing parenting schemas. Many of these techniques also help to differentiate parenting schemas from other relational schemas so that negative affect does not intrude on parent-child transactions and lead to inappropriate caregiving responses. This article highlights the value of cognitive experimental research in enhancing our understanding of the change process. Our ultimate goal is to use that research to refine further our current therapeutic techniques and guide our development of new approaches.

The Purpose and Function of Schemas in Parenting

Theories of social cognition (Fiske & Taylor, 1991; Kahneman & Tversky, 1973) delineate how people process information in interpersonal interactions. These broad theories have spawned research on how relational schemas operate in parenting and other intimate relationships (Azar, 1989; Azar, Robinson, Hekimian, & Twentyman, 1984; Baldwin, 1992; Bowlby, 1969; Epstein & Eidleson, 1981).

Schemas, the foundation for this process, are information structures in memory that help us organize past experiences and respond to novel situations. Figure 1 portrays a larger cognitive model in which parenting schemas are the starting point of information processing in child caregiving situations (Azar & Weinzierl, in press). Parenting schemas include conceptions of the caregiving role, beliefs about one's own functioning in that role, knowledge of children in general (i.e., how they develop and what they should be like), and thoughts about one's own children in particular. Executive functioning capacity (i.e., the ability to use information in a planful, strategic manner and to guide responses to it) is not a part of parenting schemas, but the characteristics of parenting schemas may determine whether executive functioning is triggered at all. For example, parenting schemas cannot be so rigid that they impede the generation of multiple alternative explanations of child behavior problems and foreclose the possibility that parents choose appropriate responses. Likewise, appraisals and attributions are not part of parenting schemas; rather they are generated as a result of the interaction between parenting schemas and executive functioning in each parent-child interaction.

Schemas develop to help us make predictions about the behavior of people we encounter on a regular basis and efficiently respond to environmental stimuli. Schemas take shape as the result of exposure to important social information, but they generally are not a part of conscious awareness. Specific schemas are activated each time new and relevant social information is encountered. Once activated, schemas help us to perceive and interpret that new information and filter additional input. Schemas guide the retrieval of stored data and serve as templates against which information in the environment is judged and the need for a behavioral response determined. As new social information is processed, schemas, in turn, are modified by it.

Schemas are networked, such that parenting schemas are related to other schemas about oneself, one's partner, and one's friends. In any given situation, multiple competing schemas may be activated simultaneously or sequentially. For example, when toddlers have tantrums in grocery stores, parent schemas about the causes of such outbursts as well as nonparenting schemas regarding social evaluation or competence in general can influence parenting behaviors (i.e., how they might be judged by others observing the incident).