Confident Parents for Easier Children: A Parental Self-Efficacy Program to Improve Young Children’s Behavior

Abstract

This study presents the effects on children’s behavior of Confident Parents, a focused parenting program targeting parental self-efficacy. This parenting program aims to improve child behavior through the enhancement of parental self-efficacy. Confident Parents was experimentally tested on a total sample of 80 parents of three-to-six-year-old preschool aged children with moderate to clinical levels of externalizing behavior. Thirty-seven parents participated in the program, and were compared with a waitlist control group (n = 43). The intervention consisted of eight weekly group sessions. Effect sizes were evaluated through both observational and parent-report measures on the child’s behavior, as well as self-reported parental self-efficacy at pretest, post-test, and a four-month follow-up. Through a multi-level analysis, predictors of the change in the child’s behavior were identified. The moderating effect of socio-economic risk and externalizing behavior at baseline were also included in the analysis. Results show that Confident Parents improved the child’s behavior, both reported by parents and, to a lesser extent, when observed in interaction with the parent. Children with higher levels of behavior difficulty benefited more while those with socio-economic risk benefited less from this program. These results illustrate that focusing a parenting program on improving self-efficacy is effective to reduce externalizing behavior in children. This underdeveloped treatment target is worthy of investigation in parenting intervention research.

Horende moeders en vaders se benadering tot ouerskap van kinders met gehoorverlies

“…Self-effektiwiteit van ouers is geanker in die ouer se persoonlike vertroue en vermoëns om bekwaam en toereikend te funksioneer, en stresvolle eise en uitdagings wat ouers in die gesig staar, te kan hanteer (Coleman & Karraker 2003;Luszczynska, Gutierez-Dona & Schwarzer 2005). Die literatuur toon dat ouers met 'n hoë ouerskap-effektiwiteitsvertroue neig om ondersteunende ouerskapbenaderinge te gebruik en meer positief teenoor hulle kinders te wees (Mouton, Loop, Stievenart & Roskram 2018). Daarenteen is ouers met min vertroue in hul eie effektiwiteit geneig om in hul ouerskap strenger beheer uit te oefen, wat tot gevolg het dat kinders hoë vlakke van ekstreme gedrag toon (Roskam & Meunier 2012).…”

The RP3 Program to Promote Language for Early Childhood

“…So self-efficacy theory, has been appropriate for exploring staff capacity predictors due to person's actual beliefs making them more confident in their behaviour and ability to complete tasks successfully (Bandura, 1977;Coleman and Karraker, 1997;Maibach and Murphy, 1995). Likewise, a study by Mouton et al (2018) found that a self-efficacy program could have a positive effect on a child's behaviour. Some studies found that after applying a model of participatory action research, parents observed their children's behaviour more, learned from their practices at home, in school, and from resources (Ngampornsukswadi et al, 2012) and that parents increased their responsivity, and improved their language skills which had a positive impact on their children's early language development following their participation in the programme (Hatcher and Page, 2019;Moore et al, 2014).…”

The Effectiveness Of Raising Hong Kong Parents’ Awareness Of Antimicrobial Resistance Through An Educational Program With Peer Support On Social Media: A Pilot Study

“…which found a trend of growing parental self-e cacy in their parent training groups as compared to those in the control groups though the difference was not statistically signi cant. It is necessary to increase parental self-e cacy to support the development of knowledge and communication skills on antibiotic use 17 because one study had shown that parents with low self-e cacy were not able to put parenting knowledge into practice. 18…”