Parenting Adolescents Wisely: The effectiveness of an interactive videodisk parent training program in Appalachia

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of Parenting Adolescents Wisely (PAW), a brief interactive laserdisk parent training pr ogram in rural Appalachia. Thirty-eight mothers were assigned to either par ent training via the PAW program or a no-treatment control group. Compared to the control group, the mothers who used the PAW program reported increas ed knowledge of adaptive parenting practices at one month follow-up as well as significantly lower frequencies of child problem behaviors at one and t hree month follow-up as respectively. No differences were found on the moth ers' reports of their parenting practices. These findings indicate that the PAW program may be a useful tool for instructing rural parents in adaptive parenting skills.