Community Temper Taming Project
BACKGROUND:
- About 10% of all Canadian children exhibit anti-social
behaviours, such as anger and aggression, which
can seriously affect their ability to relate to others
and to do well in school.
- Many of these children have parents who also have
difficulties with their own anger.
- Anger management groups are commonly suggested for
children with such difficulties, BUT DO THEY WORK?
- The Community Temper Taming Project, led by child
psychiatrist and Offord Centre researcher Ellen
Lipman, was set up to answer this question.
ABOUT THE PROJECT:
- The Temper Taming Project is a community-based program
for 7- to 11-year-olds in Hamilton, Ontario.
- The program has 3 parts: group sessions for parents/caregivers
to build their knowledge and skills; anger management
groups for the children; and in-home sessions that
provide individualized support to families around
the newly acquired skills. The children’s
group uses a cognitive-behavioural therapy approach.
- Focused on the family, not just the child, the
program aims to decrease the children’s anger, aggression
and hostility, and improve relationships between
the children and their parents.
- Evaluations are completed before and after the group
sessions, and 3 months and 6 months later, by parents/caregivers,
children and teachers, to determine what, if any,
improvements have been made in child anger, child
hostility, child behaviour, parenting stress and
parent mood.
RESULTS:
- Children participating in the Temper Taming Project
show significant improvement on parent reported
measures of child hostility and child behaviour compared to
other children with similar angry and agressive
behaviours who did not participate in the project.
- Less significant, but still positive, effects were
seen in the areas of parenting stress/distress
and parent/child interaction.
IMPLICATIONS:
These encouraging early findings
indicate that this intervention, which combines
children’s
group cognitive-behavioral therapy with a “whole
family” approach, when applied early in a
child’s
development, can be effective in curbing angry
and aggressive behaviours. Funding is now being
sought
to offer the program in other communities, where
it can similarly decrease aggressive behaviours
that can often escalate into a life of violence
and despair
for these children.
Read Evaluation of a
Children’s Temper
Taming Program, Canadian Journal of Psychiatry,
2004, 49: 607-612
Abstract
Full Paper
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