Core Finding: PR-TRN-C02

Support for Parents & Caregivers

Sensitive Transitions

During sensitive transition periods in children’s lives (e.g. when the child is becoming more mobile), behavioural and relational patterns of both parents and children may be the most malleable, and perhaps the most important for determining later trajectories.

SENSITIVE TRANSITIONS

Behavioural and relational patterns of parents and children may be the most shapable during children's sensitive transition periods (e.g. when child is becoming more mobile). This is perhaps most important for determining their later development course.

Historically, programmes to enhance the quality of caregiving take one of two broad approaches.

Duncombe, M. E., Havighurst, S. S., Kehoe, C. E., Holland, K. A., Frankling, E. J., & Stargatt, R. (2014). Comparing an Emotion- and a Behavior-Focused Parenting Program as Part of a Multsystemic Intervention for Child Conduct Problems. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 45(3), 320–334. https://doi.org/10.1080/15374416.2014.963855

First, they seek to improve caregivers’ knowledge about good parenting or teaching practices with the assumption that greater knowledge about what children need, more strategies for providing it, and to use more effective management and discipline strategies will lead parents and caregivers to engage in more responsive, warm, and enriching interactions.

Bond, L. A., & Burns, C. E. (2006). Mothers’ beliefs about knowledge, child development, and parenting strategies: Expanding the goals of parenting programmes. Journal of Primary Prevention, 27(6), 555–571. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10935-006-0061-9

Second, programmes have addressed parents’ relational and psychological well-being as an important dimension of family life that, if improved, will yield better parenting and child outcomes.

Suchman, N., DeCoste, C., & Dias, H. (in press). Parental psychopathology. In Bornstein, M. H. (Ed.), Handbook of Parenting (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

The Early Childhood Compendium (ECC) seeks to include the intentionality of both the approaches. Limitation of acquiring knowledge through parenting programmes is that the specific knowledge and skills provided to parents is often relevant for only a developmental stage of the child’s life.

Additionally, the programme does not support parents who may face disequilibrium in the family life because of child’s development, which may not always be an even ride.