Families that stimulate social skills behaviors seem to favor their children's social development. Thus, to intervene in the parents' relationship seems to be a means to minimize certain behavior problems. For an effective intervention it is recommended to characterize the demands of individuals that seek assistance, be it through the characterization of the parents'/caretakers' behaviors, as well as through the characterization of the children's/adolescent's skills and/or difficulties. The objective of the research was to characterize, through a Semi-structured Clinical Interview, complaints and difficulties of 59 parents/caretakers that looked for psychological assistance in a Center of Applied Psychology. The main results are: a) complaints of externalizing problems, such as aggressiveness, disobedience and obstinacies; b) difficulties of the parents/caretakers regarding the skills involved in establishing limits (to beat the child/adolescent and not have consistency) and in communication. This paper discusses the interdependence between the adults' behaviors and the ones exhibited by children/adolescents and repercussions for future interventions.
characterization; social skills; behavior problems
