An Emotion-Focused Early Intervention for Children with Emerging Conduct Problems

Abstract

This paper evaluates the real-world effectiveness of an emotion-focused, multi-systemic early intervention combining an emotion socialization parenting program with a child and school socio-emotional intervention for children with emerging conduct problems. Schools in lower socioeconomic areas of Victoria, Australia were randomized into intervention or wait-list control. Children in the first 4 years of elementary school were screened for behavior problems and those in the top 8 % of severity were invited to participate in the intervention. The study sample consisted of 204 primary caregivers and their children (Mage=7.05, SD=1.06; 74 % boys). Data were collected at baseline and 10 months later using parent and teacher reports and direct child assessment. Measures of parent emotion socialization, family emotion expressiveness, and children's emotion competence, social competence and behavior were administered. Results showed intervention parents but not controls became less emotionally dismissive and increased in empathy, and children showed better emotion understanding and behavior compared to control children. These outcomes lend support for an emotionfocused approach to early intervention in a real-world context for children with conduct problems.Keywords Emotion coaching . Emotion socialization . Emotion competence . Behavior problems . Parenting . Early intervention . Multi-systemic intervention Disruptive behavior problems in young children are a risk factor for conduct disorder, later substance abuse, poor peer relations, delinquency and violence which add substantial costs to society on a social and economic level (Moffitt 1993;Sawyer et al. 2000). The first years of school are an important time for identifying children at risk and intervening before these problems become intractable (Webster-Stratton and Reid 2004). Successful interventions include multisystemic components for lasting effects such as parent, child and school-based programs (Sanders et al. 2000). Typically, multi-systemic interventions include behavioral parent training based on social learning principles, which have also been found effective as stand-alone interventions for reducing children's behaviour problems (for a meta-analysis see Thomas and Zimmer-Gembeck 2007). Up to one third of families who receive this type of parenting intervention, however, do not benefit (Dumas 2005; Webster-Stratton and Hammond 1997) and behavioral parent training has been found less effective when there are attachment problems, when parents have difficulties regulating emotions, or when there is maternal depression or marital conflict ( DOI 10.1007/s10802-014-9944-z Kendall 2002). Multi-systemic interventions that incorporate a parenting program targeting parent emotion socialization (responses to emotions in oneself and one's child), in combination with a child intervention, which focuses on improving emotional competence (e.g., skills in understanding and regulating emotions), are yet to be evaluated. The current study is a real-world effe...

Reducing Children Behavior Problems: A Pilot Study of Tuning in to Kids in Iran

“…Emotion dismissing parenting has been found to be detrimental to children's emotional and behavioral development [20], and so, reductions in this aspect of parenting are important. In contrast to community samples [15] and consistent with previous clinical evaluations [9,11] of TIK, in the current study, mothers did not report any increase in emotion coaching. Previous studies have shown the expectancy bias affects parents' reports on emotion socialization questionnaires, especially emotion socialization beliefs.…”

“…While the TIK program is an emotion-focused intervention and used few behavioral strategies, mothers receiving TIK reported significant reductions in their children's behavior problems with a large effect size. It has been shown that different versions of TIK reduce behavior problems in a range of age groups including toddlers [21], preschoolers [23], middle childhood and adolescence [24] with normal [10,15,25] and clinical [9,11,26] samples. Interventions that aim to reduce children's disruptive behaviors usually use behavioral parenting strategies.…”

“…Different research studies have proven the efficacy of the TIK program in community and clinical samples of preschool children [9,10]. For example, Havighurst and colleagues [11] evaluated TIK as an early intervention for preschool children with behavior problems and found that parents in the intervention condition reported less emotion dismissiveness and child behavior problems as well as greater emotion coaching and empathy.…”

Improving Parent Emotion Socialization Practices: Piloting Tuning in to Kids in Iran for Children With Disruptive Behavior Problems

“…Ten months after the intervention, parents were less emotionally dismissive and more empathic with their children than were those in the control condition. Moreover, children of parents receiving TIK showed fewer behavior problems and better emotional understanding (Havighurst, Duncombe, et al, ).…”

Entrenamiento Conductual y Atención Plena sobre el Estrés Parental y Relación Padre-Hijo

“…De otra parte, la investigación en estrés parental ha demostrado que las estrategias asociadas al ciclo coercitivo, reducen temporalmente tanto los comportamientos problemáticos del niño, como el malestar emocional que experimenta el padre en estos contextos (Deater-Deckard, 1998;Kazdin & Whitley, 2003). Finalmente, cabe mencionar que el establecimiento de una relación padre-hijo basada en una emocionalidad negativa, traza un factor de riesgo para el desarrollo de competencias de socialización y regulación emocional (Havighurst et al, 2015).…”