Before having children, many parents-to-be – me included – assume that taking care of a child will come naturally every step of the way. They think, “Of course I’ll know what to do when my toddler has a temper tantrum in the middle of the grocery store, or when my kid hits someone at the playground.” Until it actually happens.
The good news is parent education programs abound. Cooperative extension offices, medical facilities, government agencies and non-profit organizations across the country offer a wide-range of workshops and courses to help parents who need additional information and even practice at parenting. We recently heard from Jennifer Birckmayer, a true pioneer of parenting education in New York State, who asked Evidence-based Living about the evidence base for such programs. She wondered, does the research show they really work?
The answer is yes. Two recent analyses by the Center for Disease Control and researchers at the University of Kansas demonstrate parent education programs are effective, and that specific program components work better than others to help parents learn new skills and reduce children’s negative behaviors.
The research shows that parent training programs yield better results for parents and children when they:
- teach parents emotional communication skills, like actively listening to their children and identifying children’s emotions.
- teach parents the correct use of time out including removing all forms of attention and using a designated location when possible.
- teach parents to respond consistently when disciplining their child.
- teach parents positive interaction skills, like playing with their children and praising good behavior.
- require parents to practice with their child during the training sessions so the facilitator can provide the parent with immediate feedback.
There are also some aspects of parent education programs that are clearly less effective in teaching parents new skills and modifying children’s behavior, according to the research. They are:
- teaching parents how to problem solve about child behaviors
- teaching parents how to promote children’s academic and cognitive skills
- including ancillary services, such as job skills training or anger management, as part of the parenting program
According to the analyses, a major component of improving children’s behavior boils down to providing
parents with the skills they need to improve their relationships with their children. This reflects a major conclusion of child development research: Children who have positive relationships with their parents are much less likely to misbehave.
For more information about parent education programs, check out Parent Training Programs: Insight for Practitioners and “A Meta-analytic Review of Components Associated with Parent Training Program Effectiveness” in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.
Do you have a question for Evidence-Based Living? E-mail it to Karl Pillemer at kap6@cornell.edu.
– Sheri Hall
This is a great dialogue regarding how to fit evidence-based programs with what goes on in the “real world.” We will work to do a follow-up post to address these issues.
I am going to go out on a limb here (and feel free to yell at me in follow-up comments) and say that in Externsion we are generally in the business of using research evidence in any program we do. But maybe we need to do what some doctors do when a patient wants to use an alternative medicine practice on which there is no research evidence: Respect and value the person’s opinion, but point out the lack of evidence and suggest more reliable and evidence-based approaches.
I would also add that in Extension (and in parent education more generally, I imagine) we are all in a transitional phase, moving toward evidence-based programming in steps, not all at once. So this kind of dialogue about what it really means is very informative.
I agree with Jenny’s positive comments and her question. Helping parents with their intrests and questions, including assisting them with problem solving seems like a natural process that occurs with any evidence-based curricula….
It takes a balance between fidelity to the curriculum and being responsive to the audience before you. When facing a conflict between the two- I will serve my audience first because I believe that the only worthwhile outcome is the participants goals. If I am not helping them meet their goals with research based information then I am no longer delivering extension education in my book. 🙂
It’s wonderful to have some evidence that parent education programs are indeed effective – as we who are parent educators have witnessed for a long time! However, the emphasis on using evidence-based curricula poses a rreal question for me – How do we honor parents’ expressed interests and questions while at the same time using evidence-based materials?