Abstract
BackgroundPrimary aim of the current randomized controlled trial was to test the effectiveness of the parenting intervention ‘Video-feedback to promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline’ (VIPP-SD) in a sample of parents of preschool-aged twins, as well as differential susceptibility to intervention efforts, that is, whether more temperamentally reactive parents would profit more from the VIPP-SD than parents with lower reactivity.MethodsThe sample consisted of 202 families with same-sex twins [N = 404 children, mean age 45 months (SD = 6.81)]. Randomization was done at the family level in a 2:3 ratio, with 83 families (41%) randomized to the VIPP-SD group, and 119 families (59%) to the control group. After two pre-tests in year 1 and year 2 of the study, the VIPP-SD was implemented in the third year, with a post-test assessment 1 month after the five intervention sessions. Parental sensitivity was observed during structured play in which parent and child copied a drawing together in a computerized Etch-A-Sketch paradigm. Parental limit-setting was observed in a ‘don’t touch’ task in which the parent required from the child to abstain from playing with attractive toys. Parents interacted with each of their twins in separate sessions.ResultsThe VIPP-SD intervention had a positive impact on the level of parents’ positive limit-setting in interaction with their preschool twins, and this positive effect was most pronounced when the parents completed at least five intervention sessions. However, the intervention did not enhance parental sensitivity during structured play. Parents with higher reactivity were not more open to the impact of the intervention, thus for this temperamental marker differential susceptibility in adults was not supported.ConclusionsThe current study is unique in targeting families with twin preschoolers, providing proof of principle that coaching parents with video-feedback promotes parental sensitive limit-setting to both children. It remains to be seen whether this finding can be replicated in families with non-twin siblings, or other parental susceptibility markers.Trial registration Trial NL5172 (NTR5312), 2015-07-20.
Highlights
Primary aim of the current randomized controlled trial was to test the effectiveness of the parenting intervention ‘Video-feedback to promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline’ (VIPP-second parent M (SD)) in a sample of parents of preschool-aged twins, as well as differential susceptibility to intervention efforts, that is, whether more tempera‐ mentally reactive parents would profit more from the VIPP-SD than parents with lower reactivity
In the current paper we focus on the first question, namely whether parenting can be changed through a parent coaching program using videofeedback, and we address the question which parents are most open, i.e. susceptible to the impact of this videofeedback intervention
Intervention and control groups did not differ on parental temperamental reactivity
Summary
Primary aim of the current randomized controlled trial was to test the effectiveness of the parenting intervention ‘Video-feedback to promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline’ (VIPP-SD) in a sample of parents of preschool-aged twins, as well as differential susceptibility to intervention efforts, that is, whether more tempera‐ mentally reactive parents would profit more from the VIPP-SD than parents with lower reactivity. Little room seems to be left for the shared environment such as parenting style to shape development [1,2,3]. Whereas Judith Harris in her book on ‘The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do’ [2] argued that the shared environment of families did not affect child development, she still left room for the shared environment of peers and neighborhoods to make a difference in developmental trajectories of adolescents. How our DNA makes us who we are’, Robert Plomin [3] summarizes several decades of behavioral and molecular genetic research on child development, in particular intelligence and school achievement, and he is even more radically rejecting the idea that shared influences of families, schools and peers would be important. ‘Families matter but they don’t make a difference’ is the bottom line of his grand and personal synthesis of the genetics literature
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