The Coping Power Program is designed for use with preadolescent and early adolescent aggressive children and their parents and is often delivered near the time of children's transition to middle school. Aggression is one of the most stable problem behaviors in childhood. If not dealt with effectively, it can lead to negative outcomes in adolescence such as drug and alcohol use, truancy and dropout, delinquency, and violence. This program has proven effective in helping to avoid these types of problems.
The parent component of the program consists of 16 group meetings also held during the 5th and 6th grade school years. Parents are taught ways of reinforcing their children's positive behaviors, as well as effective discipline techniques for eliminating negative behaviors. Skills for improving family communication, providing academic support in the home, and building family cohesion are also a focus. Parents also learn how to give effective instructions and establish age-appropriate rules and expectations for their children at home. In addition to these basic parenting skills, the program describes relaxation techniques that parents can use to deal with their own stress. Tips for taking care of personal needs and effective time management strategies also help to ease the challenges of parenting an aggressive child.

The Coping Power Program is designed for use with preadolescent and early adolescent aggressive children and their parents and is often delivered near the time of children's transition to middle school. Aggression is one of the most stable problem behaviors in childhood. If not dealt with effectively, it can lead to negative outcomes in adolescence such as drug and alcohol use, truancy and dropout, delinquency, and violence. This program has proven effective in helping to avoid these types of problems.
The parent component of the program consists of 16 group meetings also held during the 5th and 6th grade school years. Parents are taught ways of reinforcing their children's positive behaviors, as well as effective discipline techniques for eliminating negative behaviors. Skills for improving family communication, providing academic support in the home, and building family cohesion are also a focus. Parents also learn how to give effective instructions and establish age-appropriate rules and expectations for their children at home. In addition to these basic parenting skills, the program describes relaxation techniques that parents can use to deal with their own stress. Tips for taking care of personal needs and effective time management strategies also help to ease the challenges of parenting an aggressive child.

This program is an evidence-based program for dealing with behavioural problems in pre-adolescent children, concentrating on children who are beginning to show signs of severe aggression amd social dysfunction at school. Children who begin to exhibit aggression as pre-adolescents are much more likely to have histories of substance abuse, interpersonal violence, and criminal behaviour in their adolescence. By targeting these children before their behaviour has become extremely dangerous or unmanageable, this program has been proven to reduce the occurence of these problems, and to improve functioning in school. Studies have shown that children who display aggressive behaviour have maladaptive coping skills and misperceptions of conflict or threat. This program teaches positive strategies for coping with perceived conflict or threat, as well as an understanding of the participant's feelings and motivations behind inappropriate behaviour. The Coping Power program involves an intervention with aggressive children and a simultaneous program for their parents, to increase positive motivations at home as well as at school. This guide is for the the facilitator of the child group, and includes step-by-step instructions for accurately implementing this evidence-based program. There is a corresponding workbook for the children which includes worksheets and exercises to reinforce the skills learned in the group sessions.