The effects of parent-centered psychological counseling on children's problem behaviors, parental stress, and the child-parent relationship

This study aimed to investigate the effects of the "Parent-Centered Psychological Counseling" approach developed for the current dissertation on children's problem behaviors, parental stress, and child-parent relationship. Therefore, a 'single group pre-test-post-test experimental design' was used in the study, and a 74-hour counseling session was conducted with five parents whose children had problem behavior. The researcher applied the psychological counseling approach that he developed for the current study during all the sessions. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) was used to determine the perceived stress level of the participant parents, and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) was administered to measure the problem behavior levels of the children. The researcher prepared a Behavior Chart (BC) to note down the frequency and duration of the problem behaviors in children. The acceptance level in the child-parent relationships was measured using the Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire (PARQ). All of the data were obtained from the forms filled out by the parents. The research results showed that the given parent-centered psychological counseling approach effectively reduced the problem behaviors in children, increased the acceptance level in the parent-child relationships, and decreased the perceived stress level of the parents. Besides, after the counseling, the duration and quality of the time children and parents spent together increased significantly. It was observed that the designed psychological counseling approach did not lead to a significant change in the time that children spent on playing games, educational pursuits, and technological tools.