Ecological perspectives

Ecological perspectives

Ecological perspectives require that one look at the person of interest, his or her environment and how he or she interacts with the environment. The contextual and interdependent relationship between the individual and the contextual system is also essential. Nonetheless, Phelan fails to account for the ecological perspective. For instance, since a parent can use the stop behavior step in public, he overlooks how the environment tends to influence the parent-child relationship, such as the effectiveness of a time-out (Phelan, 1995, p. 51). Also, the failure to look at the root cause of the obnoxious behavior does not put into perspective any ecological perspectives that tend to influence behavior. Instead, the book focuses on providing a quick fix when a child displays some unwanted behavior.