Tuning in to Kids teaches parents to coach a child through a feeling instead of shutting it down, and its evidence came almost entirely from Western families. So a Hong Kong team ran a randomized controlled trial with 104 parents of three to six year olds, mostly mothers, on low to middle incomes. Half took the six-week course and half waited. What moved, and when?
and parenting stress both fell as soon as the course ended, and the drops were still there six weeks later. Two other changes arrived late rather than immediately. Parents encouraged their children to express feelings more, and the children’s and negativity eased, both showing only at the final measurement. The group then took the course and reproduced the immediate effects.
means naming and accepting a child’s feeling before dealing with the behavior, rather than dismissing or punishing the feeling itself. Tuning in to Kids packages it as a six-week parent course, and nearly all of its evidence had come from Western families.
This randomized controlled trial tested it in Hong Kong. One hundred four parents of preschoolers aged three to six, 99 mothers and five fathers, on low to middle incomes, drew either the course or a waitlist place. Everyone was assessed at baseline, straight after the six weeks, and six weeks after that.
The immediate gains were in the parents. Punitive parenting dropped and parenting stress dropped, both significantly, and both were still down at the final measurement. That is the pattern a parenting course is meant to produce. The waitlist matters because it produced the same thing once those parents took the training too.
The changes in the children came late. Greater use of expressive encouragement by parents, and reductions in the children’s emotion lability and negativity, showed up only at the third measurement. Read that as a sequence rather than a disappointment, with the parent’s behavior shifting first and the child’s regulation following. Keep the scale in view, though. One site, 104 parents, and outcomes reported by the same parents who sat through the course, which is why the authors call the cross-cultural support preliminary.
wat. Harsh discipline and parental stress dropped the moment the course ended, while the children’s own emotional swings took another six weeks to settle.
wat wat
A waitlist group that later repeats the result is a small internal replication, which is more than most parenting trials of this size offer. It is also one of very few tests of this program outside Western samples.
How do we know?
Chan, Qiu and Shum randomly assigned 104 parents of preschoolers to the six-week program or a waitlist, measuring parenting, stress and child emotion regulation at baseline, immediately after, and six weeks later.
What is still unknown
One hundred four parents at a single site, 99 of them mothers, with outcomes reported by the same parents who took the course. The authors call the cross-cultural support preliminary.
Learn something?
Where to next
Does the way you praise a toddler matter five years later?parenting
Does letting a baby cry it out leave a mark a year later?parenting
Does a parent stop finding their own child’s smell pleasant?parenting