The Coercive Parent-Child Cycle

Children may develop conduct problems over time for many reasons, particularly due to a genetic predisposition to temperamental issues, but a significant factor comes down to inadequate or unsatisfactory parent-child interactions. When a child is misbehaving, parents may cycle between permissive and aggressive responses, and overly hostile interactions may result in the child being conditioned to misbehave again in the future. When this pattern is repeated over and over again, the child will begin showing more conduct problems due to the parent unintentionally reinforcing him or her to do so. The Coercive Parent-Child Cycle is one of the primary ways in which parents unknowingly reinforce their child’s misbehavior and defiance. Children will

Robert Weis (2014) states in the textbook that, “Each member of the dyad teaches the other to act in a way that elicits the child’s opposition-defiant behavior.” It is very common for parents to accidentally reward this behavior by failing to react in the right way and giving in to their child’s tantrum.

An example given by Weis (2014) of this problematic pattern of parent-child interaction demonstrated how operant conditioning can play a dangerous role in a child’s conduct problems. The cycle began with the child playing in the living room; when the mother asks the child to set the table, the child ignores her. This is the child’s attempt to extinguish his mother’s behavior, presumably so he can continue playing, and this behavior is very common. Most children don’t want to partake in chores or responsibilities when they would rather be playing instead. Then the mother, unhappy that her child won’t comply with

In addition, she helped teach her children that demonstrating opposition-defiant behavior will get them what they want, so throwing a tantrum is their first reaction. However, there are many other solutions listed in the book that may have suited this parent-child interaction much better. For example, if the mother had first tried to understand why her son was misbehaving - perhaps he just wanted her attention when she was busy ringing up her items at the register - before the situation went awry. In this case, if she had paid attention to why he was yelling and hitting his sister, perhaps she could have ended the tantrum right there and then. I have found that, when dealing with children around this age, it often helps to ask them to explain what they are feeling, as this can sometimes alleviate their frustration and calm down the beginnings of a tantrum. Perhaps if the mother had asked her son what made him so angry and upset, he would have responded better to this more appropriate form of attention, as opposed to yelling and threatening. It is also important to note that, although I did not know this family, it was clear that this sort of unhealthy parent-child interaction occurred frequently, especially in public places. The boy only intensified his crying and yelling when his mom told him that everyone in