be overreactive and sometimes even physical in their discipline practices,” Beauchaine said.
Dr. Alexander Fiks, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, said parents often slip into negative parenting when they are tired or frustrated by their child’s actions.
“Screaming, nasty comments, threats, ultimatums that may be unreasonable, pushing kids away, hitting, getting in their face or holding your child down are all negative parenting techniques,” explained Fiks, who was not involved with the study.
“Most parents know positive parenting when they see it, which includes praise, flexibility, smiling, hugging, rewards, focusing on privileges, engaging kids in activities where they can succeed, setting achievable goals and making wishes and expectations that are reasonable for the child and developmentally appropriate,” he said.
As parents learned effective problem-solving, adaptive emotional regulation and positive parenting responses, the children began to demonstrate improvements in behavior.
“What this research found was that in these kids, following this intervention, their heart rates slowed down, they were breathing more slowly and they were calmer,” Beauchaine explained.
Fiks said: “It’s interesting to see that when behaviors improve, there can actually be