An important long term goal of the Parenting Clinic is to promote emotional and social competence and to prevent, reduce, and treat behavior and emotional problems in young children. This work forms the basis of the Incredible Years project. An informative 24 page booklet describing the Incredible Years Project can be downloaded by clicking here . To develop and evaluate cost effective, community-based programs designed to promote children's social competence and prevent children from developing later conduct problems. By preventing and treating early onset conduct problems, one of the most important predictors of later development of violence and drug abuse, we believe we will prevent children from continuing on the trajectory to drug abuse, school drop out, and violence in adolescence and adulthood.
Research indicates that aggression in young children is escalating and at younger ages.
These trends have disturbing implications because the early onset of these problems is predictive of substance abuse, juvenile delinquency, antisocial behavior, and violence in adolescence and adulthood. People with histories of chronic aggression that began in early childhood are more likely than others to commit murder, rape, robbery, arson, and to engage in substance abuse and violent acts. The problem of escalating aggression in young children is a universal concern. Many of these children also had other developmental problems such as language and learning delays and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Adding the Incredible Years Child Dinosaur Training and Teacher Training Programs to the Parent Program significantly enhanced the effectiveness of these treatment outcomes for children, resulting in reductions in classroom aggression with peers and teachers and strengthening social competence at school.