Parents' Discipline of Children in Public Places

Unobtrusive observation of parents and children in public places indicates that similar to previous obtrusive investigations, there are social class differences in the use of restrictive vs. autonomy-granting discipline techniques. However, in the present study these social class differences were not significant. The notion of children's public misbehavior being viewed by parents as an emergency situation is put forth as an important part of the explanation of parents' preference for the more restrictive discipline techniques. Implications of these findings for parent effectiveness training programs are discussed.