Family matters
Programs can teach children—and their parents—the life skills needed to curb disruptive behaviour
For kids coping with aggression, family treatment programs make a world of difference,
For 11-year-old Colin Stainton, learning to cope with his anger has opened a lot of doors.
For as long as he could remember, the Grade 6 student at Eglinton Public School found himself getting angry at the smallest things, and he paid for it with poor grades, few friends and strained relationships with his older sister and mother.
But group programs offered by the CAMH provided Colin and his mother with the skills to control and work through Colin’s aggression – with tremendous results.
“It’s like night and day,” says Colin’s mother, Cheryl Marsh, 45. “It’s such a relief for both of us.”
Colin recalls life before group therapy. “Once I got angry, I just couldn’t stop … People were not willing to be near me, or to be friends with me,” he says.
“He was a bright student,” says Marsh, a single mother. But he wouldn’t apply himself. “The anger literally took over.”
The programs – Coping Power, for children 9 to12, the Dinosaur Social Skills Program, for children 6 to 8, and the Incredible Years Parenting Program, for parents of children 6 to 12 – are intended to deal with disruptive and aggressive behaviour, says Rob Bancroft, a social worker who is head of the Better Behaviours Service (BBS), part of CAMH’s Child, Youth and Family Program, which will move this month to the new Intergenerational Wellness Centre, which integrates services for different ages in one location.
There are multiple causes for children’s aggression, from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder to general anxiety, explains Bancroft, which is often related to what’s happening at home. “It’s not uncommon for parents to be having their own struggles with mental health, employment or housing,” he says, thus the programs are focused on “treating the whole system, the whole context, the whole family.”
In the past, children might have been seen individually by a therapist, and there was little support for parents, he says. Indeed, there was “parent-blaming,” while today there is more of an emphasis on the child and the fact that he or she must learn new skills, strategies and ideas.
The weekly BBS sessions run over 15 weeks and are delivered to groups of eight children and their parents. They include videos, exercises, group discussions and roleplaying that teach coping mechanisms, which the children and parents are encouraged to practise in their day-to-day lives, says Dr. Brendan Andrade, a clinician-sci- entist and psychologist with CAMH’s Child, Youth and Family Program.
“The hope is that the skills they learn through the programs will translate into their homes and schools and communities,” he says. Children in the program especially benefit from interacting, rehearsing and socializing with peers, starting in the sessions. “It normalizes their experiences,” Andrade says.
Marsh says that Colin’s anger issues first began to appear following an abusive relationship that she left when he was two. He would act defiantly at home, for instance refusing to do chores like brush his teeth, and lash out at others at school. The vice-principal suggested the BBS programs at CAMH.
Last fall, Colin enrolled in Coping Power and Marsh in the Incredible Years Parenting Program, each of them attending two-hour concurrent group sessions. After every ses- sion there was homework to do and lessons to apply. Colin filled out sheets of paper—analyzing situations in which he had been angry and how he had reacted—to present to his group the next week. Marsh, meanwhile, found support in the parenting sessions. Parents in the program “enjoy the content but also the contact with other parents,” Bancroft says. “It really is very therapeutic.” Andrade says that CAMH, with the support of the Ontario Mental Health Foundation, is currently conducting studies of the Coping Power and Incredible Years Parenting programs in order to “innovate treatment” in the future, for example learning how to tailor the content to help kids with specific needs . CAMH’s focus is on having an evidence-based foundation for such programs, he says, adding that research to date shows the programs are effective in helping children solve problems, manage their emotions and develop ways of interacting with others. Marsh “highly recommends” the programs, adding that she and Colin continue to apply what they learned in them. Since he completed his Coping Power program in December, Colin’s grades have improved to As and Bs from Cs, Marsh says. And she adds, “He has friends calling and texting him and all those things that kids do.” “Now, I almost never get angry,” Colin says. But when he does on occasion lose his cool, he applies strategies like using “coping statements” and trying to regulate his emotions better. He says he would like to become a gym or math teacher, where one day he will be able to help children in the classroom deal with anger issues. “I can give what I’ve learned to others,” he says.