What are the most effective programs for improving parenting skills?
There is strong consensus that parents matter in how their children develop and function. Yet according to data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, only one-third of Canadian parents use optimal parenting approaches.
“Many of the skills children acquire are fundamentally dependent on their interactions with their, caregivers and the broader social environment”, say Matthew R. Sanders and Alina Morawska, of the University of Queensland, Australia. They identify parenting quality as “the strongest potentially modifiable risk factor” in the development of behavioural and emotional problems in children.
Parent-child interactions affect many different areas of development, including self-esteem, academic achievement, cognitive development and behaviour. Research shows that language stimulation and learning materials in the home are strongly linked to school readiness, vocabulary and early school achievement, while parent discipline strategies and nurturance are most strongly linked to social and emotional outcomes, such as behaviour and impulse control and attention.
But what makes parents parent the way they do? Knowledge of child development, personal beliefs and expectations, their own experiences and the socioeconomic environment are just some influencing factors.
Jay Belsky, from the Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues at Birkbeck, University of London, U.K., highlights a number of forces that shape parenting. These include "the attributes of the children, the developmental history of the parents and their own psychological makeup, and the broader social context in which parents and this relationship are embedded.”
“Parents observe their children through a filter of conscious and unconscious thoughts and attitudes and these filters direct the way they perceive their children's actions and how they behave toward them”, explains Joan E. Grusec, of the University of Toronto. Daniel S. Shaw, of the University of Pittsburgh, notes that parental age, well-being, history of antisocial behaviour, social support within and outside the family and neighbourhood quality (particularly in impoverished communities) can also influence child functioning.
Cause and effect
A large body of research on parental behaviour and child-rearing practices indicates that parental warmth combined with reasonable levels of control produces positive child outcomes.
ln a number of investigations, sensitive-responsive parenting was linked to positive emotionality in children, while children who were negative, irritable or aggressive were found to have received “Iess supportive, if not problematic parenting”, reports Belsky. lnconsistent, rigid or irritable explosive discipline, as well as low supervision and involvement, have been closely associated with the development of child conduct problems.
Parental knowledge also plays a key role. Parents who are aware of developmental norms and milestones, understand the processes of child development and are familiar with caregiving skills gain a global cognitive organization for adapting to or anticipating developmental changes in children.
Knowledge can also affect parents' beliefs and expectations, which in turn can have an impact on child outcomes. Parents' inaccurate beliefs or overestimation of their child's performance can actually undermine the child's performance. “For example, adolescent mothers who reported more positive, more realistic and more mature expectations about parenting, children and the parent-child relationship had children with better coping skills”, note Sanders and Morawska.
Support for parents
Given the importance of parental skills in children's development and the fact that optimal parenting practices are not necessarily innate, a large number of programs exist to help parents improve their parenting. Some programs are intended for all parents and children, while others target specific groups, such as single mothers, low-income families or parents of children with developmental problems.
“Parent support programs do not share a uniform intervention, but they do have a common goal - to improve the lives of children - and a shared strategy - to affect children by creating changes in parents' attitudes, knowledge and/or behaviour”, explains Barbara Dillon Goodson, of Abt Associates Inc., USA. Parent-support programs seek to influence children's outcomes by motivating changes in parents through a variety of supports, including case management that links families with services, education on child development and parenting practices, and social support through relationships with service staff and other parents.
“The challenge for Canadian health and social-service providers”, says Jane Drummond, from the University of Alberta's Faculty of Nursing, “is to promote optimal parenting, but in a proactive and cost-effective manner.” The barriers are numerous: service fragmentation, narrowness of mandate, power differential created by provider expertise, and access difficulties because of location, language or hours of availability. “Because the issues facing vulnerable families are rooted in an array of social, economic and political conditions that extend beyond the control of one service sector, government and community systems must collaborate to coordinate programs”, she states.
Effective programs
Despite the scarcity of large-sample studies or randomized control trials measuring the effects of parenting programs on child development outcomes, researchers have identified some characteristics of successful programs.
Carol M. Trivette and Carl J. Dunst of the Orelena Hawks Puckett Institute, USA, advocate a family-centred approach. “Research demonstrates that when community-based parent support programs provide a variety of parenting guidance and support options in a family-centred manner, parents' confidence and competence is enhanced, and parents are more likely to interact with their children in ways that promote the children's social and emotional development.”
Other research shows that programs combining work with parents and early childhood education have larger-than average effects on both parents and children.
Targeting specific needs
Goodson also found that more successful programs targeted children with a specific need that had been identified by the parents, used professional rather than paraprofessional staff, and provided opportunities for parents to meet together and provide peer support.
Similarly, Shaw found that effective programs address specific types of child behaviour (e.g. developmental disabilities or child conduct problems) or target specific developmental transitions. They cover multiple parenting factors, such as consistent caregiving in preschool or daycare and maternal well-being. They devote enormous efforts to the initial training of staff and to maintaining the quality of the intervention over time.
For children with behaviour problems, Robert J. McMahon of the University of Washington advocates “parent training” programs, in which parents meet with a therapist who teaches them to use specific procedures to alter their child's behaviour at home.
And for sceptics who might question the costs of parenting programs, he gives the dollar facts. “An economic analysis of the costs and benefits of several intervention strategies indicated that parent training was more cost-effective in preventing later crime than home visiting plus day care or supervision of delinquents”, McMahon concludes. Being a parent is never easy; programs to help parents are therefore essential. When parents are knowledgeable about child development and have access to professional and peer support, their parenting skills and behaviours are enhanced. And because parent-child interactions have a lasting effect on children's social, emotional, behavioural and cognitive development, better parenting can only mean healthier, happier children.
This article is a publication from the Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development.
