At work, Jalila Kormachi could get a roomful of fifteen children to listen. At home with her own two-year-old daughter, that experience seemed to desert her. In the evening, helping her daughter into her pyjamas, she would replay her reaction and wish she had handled things differently. She had books and professional experience. What she wanted was someone with whom she could go back over the moment itself.

That experience, and her encounter with Yara Doumit’s systemic approach to problem solving, led the two therapists to develop the Collectifs d’analyse de la pratique parentale (Capp®), or reflective practice groups for parents. Their starting point was a familiar professional practice: colleagues make time to examine difficult situations together. Parents could have that opportunity too.

Who sets the agenda?

Jalila had already run workshops on set topics. She had seen how differently the same suggestion could land with someone parenting alone, a recently separated couple or a family adjusting to life in a new country. In a Capp® group, one parent chooses an incident from everyday life. The other parents put their experience at that person’s disposal. The facilitator prepares the structure. The parents bring the agenda.

Finding a question the parent can act on

The group starts with a description. Who was there? What happened just beforehand? How did each person respond? Sketching the family can bring separations, relationships and sources of support into view. One account may raise several issues. The parent chooses one, and the facilitator helps them put it into words they recognise as their own.

Take an invented example. A father says, “My daughter never listens.” Looking closely at the last few minutes before the school run, he notices that the more often he tells her to put her shoes on, the longer she takes and the louder he gets. His question becomes, “How can we get out of this morning loop?” The group now has a specific interaction to explore, one in which either person might do something differently.

Next, the facilitator writes down what the parent has already tried, including anything that helped just once. The parent can see how much work they have done. The others can spare them advice they have heard three times already. Instead, they offer possible explanations, experiences of their own or a different way of seeing what happened. The parent decides what to take away. Sometimes it is something to try at home. Sometimes the child’s behaviour has taken on a different meaning.

What the facilitator safeguards

Yara Doumit draws a careful distinction. The facilitator guides the process, shares out speaking time and slows the rush to conclusions. The parent retains authority over the question and what happens next. Six adults telling a father what he ought to do might recreate the very pressure he has described at home. Yara calls this a risk of isomorphism: a pattern from one relationship takes shape again in the group convened to reflect on it.

There is a connection here with Albert Bandura’s work on self-efficacy, the belief that one can act effectively in a particular situation. For the father in our example, remembering a Wednesday when leaving the house went more smoothly opens a practical question: what did we do differently that morning?

What carries over into family life

Jalila describes groups of six to eight parents, meeting once for each participant so everyone has a turn. She allows about two and a half hours for the work and three hours in all, including a welcome and informal conversation. Around 140 parents have attended her workshops in the Lyon area. What she remembers from their accounts is a change in the questions they asked at home. Sometimes the first difference comes when someone pauses before assuming what the other person meant and asks how the moment felt to them.