A longitudinal examination of positive parenting following an acceptance-based couple intervention.

Abstract

Positive parenting practices have been shown to be essential for healthy child development, and yet have also been found to be particularly challenging for parents to enact and maintain. This paper explores an innovative approach for increasing positive parenting by targeting specific positive emotional processes within marital relationships. Couple emotional acceptance is a powerful mechanism that has repeatedly been found to improve romantic relationships, but whether these effects extend to the larger family environment is less well understood. The current longitudinal study examined the role of improved levels of acceptance in mother’s and father’s positive parenting after a couple intervention. Participants included 244 parents (122 couples) in the Marriage Checkup (MC) study, a randomized, controlled, acceptance-based, intervention study. Data indicated that both women and men experienced significantly greater felt acceptance two-weeks after the MC intervention, treatment women demonstrated greater positive parenting two weeks after the intervention, and all treatment participants’ positive parenting was better maintained than control couple’s six months later. Importantly, although mothers’ positive parenting was not influenced by different levels of felt acceptance, changes in father’s positive parenting were positively associated with changes in felt acceptance. As men felt more accepted by their wives, their levels of positive parenting changed in kind, and this effect on positive parenting was found to be mediated by felt acceptance two weeks after the MC. Overall, findings supported the potential benefits of targeting couple acceptance to generate positive cascades throughout the larger family system.

Results of a Family-Based Intervention Promoting Healthy Weight Strategies in Overweight Hispanic Adolescents and Parents: An RCT

“…The intervention effects on trajectories of the family functioning outcomes over 2 years were not examined because previous research has shown that levels of family functioning behaviors remain relatively stable after initial improvements in family functioning as a result of completing the intervention. 41 Intervention effect sizes were reported by dividing the absolute values of regression coefficients (unstandardized b) by the SD of the residuals of outcomes. 42 In addition, the pooled incidence rate ratio was used as intervention effects for count variables and was calculated by taking the exponent of the regression coefficient (unstandardized b).…”

Fatherhood Matters: An Integrative Review of Fatherhood Intervention Research

“…A. Cowan et al, 2009;Fagan & Iglesias, 1999;Fagan & Stevenson, 2002;Ferguson & Morley, 2011;Gearing, Colvin, Popova, & Regehr, 2008;Harrison, 1997;Houghton et al, 2015;Landreth & Lobaugh, 1998;Langston, 2016;McCrudden, Braiden, Sloan, McCormack, & Treacy, 2014;Robbers, 2009;Self-Brown et al, 2015;Self-Brown et al, 2017;Siu et al, 2017;Skar, von Tetzchner, Clucas, & Sherr, 2014;Varela, Munoz, Tessier, Plata, & Charpak, 2014;Wilczak & Markstrom, 1999;Wilson, Havighurst, Kehoe, & Harley, 2016) were conducted with fathers only; 10 of the 44 interventions (Caldwell et al, 2014;Caldwell, Rafferty, Reischl, De Loney, & Brooks, 2010;Chacko, Fabiano, Doctoroff, & Fortson, 2018;DeGarmo, Jones, & Rains, 2018;Dilorio, McCarty, & Denzmore, 2006;Ellis, Caldwell, Assari, & De Loney, 2014;Icard, Dilorio, & Fagan, 2012;McBride, 1991;Sandler et al, 2018;Wilson, Havighurst, & Harley, 2014) targeted fathers and their sons; and 11 interventions (Bunston, 2013; C. P. Cowan et al, 2005;P. A. Cowan, Cowan, Pruett, Pruett, & Gillette, 2014;Doherty et al, 2006;McConnell, Barnard, & Taylor, 2017;Morrill, Hawrilenko, & Córdova, 2016;Pruett, Insabella, & Gustafson, 2005;…”

“…Participant sample sizes across studies ranged from 5 to 5,102 participants. Fathers of African descent were the predominant ethnic/ racial group in 16 of the 44 articles (Ashburn et al, 2017;Barth et al, 1988;Block et al, 2014;Caldwell et al, 2014;Caldwell et al, 2010;Dilorio et al, 2006;Ellis et al, 2014;Fagan & Iglesias, 1999;Fagan & Stevenson, 2002;Icard et al, 2012;Rienks et al, 2011;Self-Brown et al, 2015;Self-Brown et al, 2017;Siu et al, 2017;Wilczak & Markstrom, 1999;Wood et al, 2014), followed by 11 studies with predominantly Caucasian fathers (Bunston, 2013;Doherty et al, 2006;Houghton et al, 2015;Landreth & Lobaugh, 1998;McConnell et al, 2017;McCrudden et al, 2014;Morrill et al, 2016;Pruett et al, 2005;Sandler et al, 2018;Wilson et al, 2014;Wilson et al, 2016) and 5 studies with predominantly Hispanic/Latino fathers (Chacko et al, 2018;Concha et al, 2016;P. A. Cowan et al, 2014;P.…”

Relationship between Maternal Mood Disorders and Dietary Intake of 3-Year-Olds

“…In fact, 55.9% of all households in Japan have nuclear families [1]. e involvement of husbands and partners has been reported to reduce the difficulty of childrearing [11], according to the Basic Survey on Social Life by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. However, when comparing the childcare time of husbands and wives with children under 6 years old, the time spent raising children was 3.45 hours for wives and only 0.49 hours for husbands [12].…”