Abstract
Rapid developments in the last few decades have brought about dramatic changes in Indian social life, particularly affecting new middle-class families. Inter-generational conflicts, high academic pressures, and modern anxieties lead to stress both in parents and in children. There is a need for parenting programmes that respond to these specific concerns, in order to reduce parenting stress and improve family well-being. This study aimed to develop and evaluate a parenting programme in Pune, India, based on a ‘theory of change’. In this pilot programme, parents were encouraged to learn in a group format about fostering autonomy in children, promoting academic potential in a stress-free manner and remaining in connection with adolescents. Facilitated by a psychologist, parents participated in four sessions involving ‘creativity and play’, ‘self-awareness and bonding’, and ‘communication’. The intervention was based on validated psychotherapeutic approaches and parenting methods to support parents in their learning. Some 16 in-depth interviews were conducted with parents before and eight interviews after the intervention to understand their learning experiences. Additional feedback was gathered from observation notes and debriefings after each session. The results show that the attention for playful quality time helped parents to (re)gain a more creative and flexible attitude towards spending time with their children. Second, parents learned to reflect on their frameworks of meaning (rooted in their own upbringing), listen attentively and communicate more mindful with their children. Furthermore, this study shows that an activity-based approach, connecting parents in co-creating new parenting paradigms, while supporting them with stress-reducing tools, is a useful way of engaging this target group. The study concludes by offering new perspectives for counsellors working with families in countries undergoing rapid change.
Highlights
Parents clearly play an important role in fostering their children’s well-being
We looked at ways to frame it in a way that would be sufficiently inviting for parents to participate, deliberately avoiding words such as ‘therapy’, but emphasizing the issues that are commonly experienced in middle-class Indian society
We reflect on the Theory of Change’ (TOC) by explaining which principles seemed to have contributed to learning among parents, and how the programme helped to reduce parenting stress in general
Summary
Parents clearly play an important role in fostering their children’s well-being. Safe and supportive home environments, and positive parenting styles, are generally considered to have a protective influence on children’s mental health (Bögels and Brechman-Toussaint 2006). Societal norms increasingly emphasize parents’ obligation to be actively involved in every aspect of their children’s social and psycho-educational development (Furedi 2001), putting pressure on parents and on children, who experience increasing parental intentions and control (Lee et al 2010; Natrajan and Thomas 2002). Subject to these norms, parents are intensively involved in their children’s education, closely monitoring their food intake, school bags, teachers, homework projects, and results (Lee et al 2010; Deb et al 2013), while worrying about protecting them from harmful practices on the internet and monitoring their relations with peers These were discussed with the co-authors before writing up the results
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