Parent Child Journey Course
Parent Child Journey is an integrated 10-session parent behavior management training program. It is for parents who are looking for a comprehensive approach to problem situations and behaviors. By the end of the program, parents have learned how to evaluate the source of their child’s difficulties and individualize effective management strategies. Different children. Different parents. Different approaches.
For Parent Child Journey in Spanish, go to: Journey Course en Español.
Your “10 mile” Journey
Here is what’s covered in each unit of the course.
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Know Your Child
What is it about your child – and your family situation – that causes problem behaviors and problem situations? Dr. Shapiro explains his developmental-behavioral assessment tool, “The Gander.” Learn how accurate description and clear understanding leads to individualized and effective management.
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Time–in
Individualize your approach to spending positive time with your child, repairing relationships, and taking care of yourself too.
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Engagement and Understanding
Individualize your approach to securing your child’s attention and ensuring that they understand your expectations. Don’t mistake inconsistent engagement and understanding for lack of motivation or inability.
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Motivation through Positive Attention
Individualize your approach to reinforcing good behavior. Learn how to motivate your child to meet appropriate expectations, play and work more independently.
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Motivation through Experience
When should parents step forward? When should parents step back? By selective use of natural consequences and first-then techniques, give your child the opportunity to learn from their own experience.
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Motivation through Rewards
For your child and your family, do’s and don’ts of using external reinforcement. When to use rewards and how to use them.
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Problem Solving
Moving beyond behavior management, how children – and parents – can learn to frame problems in specific and solvable terms, then collaborate to solve problems. A developmental approach.
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Time-out and Ignoring
What to do when proactive strategies fail? An individualized approach to getting through difficult moments. When to use time-out or ignoring and how to practice good technique.
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Pausing for empathy and self-reflection
Our preferred reactive strategy. The importance of responding to our children – and ourselves – with calm understanding. Teaching and practicing the language of emotion, validation, and love.
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Accommodations/Interventions
The road ahead. Finding the right balance of accommodation and skill building. Understanding remaining hurdles and setting priorities. A scientific approach to long-term developmental care.
Announcement Regarding Live Journey Discussion Groups
Starting January 2026, all live Journey courses will be offered only as pre-recorded videos. For details about the video course, see below.
Dr. Dan is not retiring but he is scaling back. It’s been a wonderful Journey.
Illustration by John Watkins-Chow from Raph’s Tale by Dr. Dan Shapiro
Parent Child Journey
At-Your-Own-Pace Video Course
You can take the recorded video course, at-your-own-pace. Pay what you can.
Purchase this online course and get six months of access to the Parent Child Journey video program. This recorded course includes over 10 hours of content, broken up into short (3-5 minute) videos. The video player allows you to pause, speed up, slow down, and re-watch course videos as many times as you like. In addition, you get action-oriented homework assignments and the complete text of Dr. Shapiro’s book, Parent Child Journey: An Individualized Approach to Raising Your Challenging Child.
Journey Course Preview
Resources for Journey Program
Your GANDER Instruction Manual
The Gander© provides an easy way to assess your child’s developmental and behavioral profile. Understanding your child’s profile will help explain the source of behavioral challenges and guide individualized management. The multi-modal Instruction Manual provides detailed – and fun –explanations.
Parent Child Journey: The book
Get your copy of Dr. Shapiro’s expansive book, Parent Child Journey: An Individualized Approach to Raising Your Challenging Child. With compassion, creativity, and humor, Dr. Shapiro presents in-depth discussion of his entire parent training program, including illustrations, graphs, charts, and detailed examples. Plus, there’s an entertaining fable that winds in and out. Available in paperback or Kindle eBook.
FAQs About the Parent Child Journey Program
What is Parent Child Journey based on?
Parent Child Journey combines the wisdoms of many different programs and schools of thought. Starting in 1985, Dr. Shapiro ran parent groups in his general pediatrics practice based on the parent training programs of Forehand/ McMahon and Barkley. Over the years, he has modified his course to include the ideas in Ross Greene’s The Explosive Child, Martin Seligman’s Learned Optimism, William Carey’s work on temperament, B.F. Skinner’s behaviorism, Phillip Kendall’s cognitive-behavioral therapy, Mel Levine’s A Mind at a Time, Carol Dweck’s Mindset – and more. While the material presented in this course is based on the work of these innovative researchers, Dr. Shapiro’s Parent Child Journey Program provides a unique integration of these time-tested approaches. The result: an approach that’s comprehensive, practical and effective. For more about the history of Parent Child Journey and Dr. Shapiro, click here.
How is Parent Child Journey different from other parenting courses?
Parent Child Journey is an individualized approach. One size does not fit all. This is what separates Parent Child Journey from other parenting programs. First, parents are taught how to answer one fundamental question: What is it about your child that causes problem situations and problem behaviors? Second, parents are introduced to a tool kit; including a large set of time-tested proactive strategies for problem situations, and reactive strategies for problem behaviors. Then, well-equipped, parents are guided on how to choose and use the right tool for their child and their family in different situations.
What if one parent can’t participate in all ten sessions? What if one parent doesn’t do any of the course?
For two-parent households, it’s always best if both parents participate. Whether you are co-parenting or a single parent, you can include others who are regularly involved in your child’s care; grandparents, nannies, daycare providers, etc. The main thing is implementation of strategies at home. You can set aside a time each week to share strategies and discuss homework with your co-parent or other childcare providers. Even those who are not actively taking the course can still collaborate and implement with each other.
What if one parent is not interested, does not think there is a problem, has a very different approach, or has been difficult to work with in the past?
It is not unusual for parents or other adults to be out-of-sync. Sometimes there is significant marital tension. Sometimes parents are divorced, separated, or single. Sometimes there is blame, shame, anxiety or anger. This kind of conflict is all the more reason to work through Parent Child Journey. In this program, we move past sweeping generalizations about your child, yourself, and your co-parent. The approach here is practical. What is it about your child and the situation that explains the problem behaviors? Taking one problem situation at a time, what practical strategies will be most effective? By focusing on specific solutions, parents often find they are not so far apart as they thought. At the end of the course, it’s not unusual for conflicting parents to find that they are better able to work with each other.
You may also be interested in Parent Child Excursions: Special Topics in Raising Your Challenging Child – an entirely different menu of courses on common developmental and behavioral issues.
Thank you for all of the expertise, experience, time, energy, hope and caring that you have put into this workshop. What I am learning is becoming such a strong voice in my head now, especially when I think I have reached the end of my rope. I have also made some special, strong, new connections in the form of other parents going through similar struggles. That counts for a lot and gives me strength.
— previous Parent Child Journey participant