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A Review of the Nurtured Heart Approach to Parenting: Evaluation of its Theoretical and Empirical Foundations
Author(s) -
Hektner Joel M.,
Brennan Alison L.,
Brotherson Sean E.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
family process
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.011
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1545-5300
pISSN - 0014-7370
DOI - 10.1111/famp.12030
Subject(s) - praise , set (abstract data type) , psychology , empirical evidence , empirical research , reinforcement , behavior management , developmental psychology , compliance (psychology) , positive parenting , social psychology , computer science , intervention (counseling) , psychiatry , philosophy , epistemology , programming language
The Nurtured Heart Approach to parenting ( NHA ; Glasser & Easley, 2008) is summarized and evaluated in terms of its alignment with current theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence in family studies and developmental science. Originally conceived and promoted as a behavior management approach for parents of difficult children (i.e., with behavior disorders), NHA is increasingly offered as a valuable strategy for parents of any children, despite a lack of published empirical support. Parents using NHA are trained to minimize attention to undesired behaviors, provide positive attention and praise for compliance with rules, help children be successful by scaffolding and shaping desired behavior, and establish a set of clear rules and consequences. Many elements of the approach have strong support in the theoretical and empirical literature; however, some of the assumptions are more questionable, such as that negative child behavior can always be attributed to unintentional positive reinforcement by parents responding with negative attention. On balance, NHA appears to promote effective and validated parenting practices, but its effectiveness now needs to be tested empirically.