The purposes of this research are using
Meichenbaum Stress Inoculation Training as a model
to design a parenting stress gro- up counseling
project, to evaluate the effectiveness of the tra-
ining project, to understand the changing process of parenting
stress coping, to examine the relationship between social
support and parenting stress, and to analyze the change
factors. A re- vised Abidin''s Parenting Stress Index
has been used as a measure- ment to examine the
effectiveness of the project. In addition to pretest
and posttest of Parenting Stress Index, individual in-
depth interviews and two group meeting have been held in order
to collect the qualitative data for understanding the
change of pa- renting stress coping process, to examine
the relationship be- tween social support and
parenting stress, and to analyze the changing factors.
The participants were 18 single parents from low income fa-
milies were recruited from Taichung Family Helper. They were
ran- domly assigned into experimental group and
control group. The ex- experimental group received the
eight sessions parenting stress group counseling
project. The major findings are as follows: In the
subscales of sense of competence, parental attachment, and
restrictions of role in Parenting Stress Index, sense of compe-
tence subscale is significantly different at P<.05 level, the
changes of the other two subscales were not significant. the co-
ping styles of two most successful members have changed from
blaming, reproaching, and beating to express expectation, to en-
courage and to get away from the situation temporarily. The
change factors include learn and apply the contents of the pro-
ject in real life, the leader''s teaching and demostraition, high
group participation rate, open-minded and flexibility in person-
ality. For the least successful case, the facors are, the gap
be- tween cognition and action, resistance to
change, does not bene- fit from the interaction with
group members, missed important sessions, stubbornness
and low impulse control. The research also finds that
the more social support a group member has, the less
parenting stress she has. In addition to present
the effectiveness of the group coun- seling project,
abundant data regarding parenting stress change
process and the alter of the coping style, the change factors of
the most and least successful cases have been analyzed.
According to the research results and findings,
recommendations for future parenting stress group
counseling project design and experimenta- tion,
concerns for the single mothers parenting stress and for
the future research have been made.