Parental Teaching Strategies Research Articles

Maternal and Paternal Teaching in a Naturalistic Home Environment

ABSTRACT Maternal and paternal teaching sequences directed to their preschool children in a naturalistic home environment were investigated. The sample included 37 middle-class sibling dyads, aged four and six, and both their mothers and fathers during ongoing interactions in the home for six 90-minute sessions. Sequences of parent–child teaching were identified and coded for teacher and learner roles, teaching strategies, child response, and context (e.g., games, conflict). Mothers and fathers did not differ in the overall proportion of their teaching. However, fathers taught significantly more in the game context than mothers, whereas mothers taught significantly more during conflicts. Directive teaching strategies were most commonly employed by parents; the only difference in parental teaching strategies was that mothers were more likely to use explanations compared to fathers. Further, parental differences in teaching initiation, sophisticated versus nonsophisticated teaching strategies, and children’s responses were examined. Findings are discussed in light of theory on teaching and learning.

Parental contributors to children’s persistence and school readiness

This study examined whether parental teaching strategies (e.g., scaffolding) are predictive of school readiness competencies through children’s task persistence, and if the strength of the relation varies across two contextual features of parenting (e.g., warmth and harsh discipline). Past research has examined contextual features of parenting or specific parenting practices as being related to children’s achievement, with less attention given to how they might interact. In the present study, a moderated-mediation model was tested to assess whether parental scaffolding skills predict children’s language-cognitive and social–emotional school readiness, mediated by children’s persistence and moderated by parent warmth and harsh discipline. Exploratory analyses assessed whether a competing sequential-mediation model better explained the associations among parenting, children’s persistence, and school readiness than a moderated-mediation model. In a low-income sample of families from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project (N = 2977), parental scaffolding significantly predicted children’s persistence at 36 months, as well as both latent constructs of school readiness before kindergarten. Persistence partially mediated the link between parental scaffolding and both latent constructs of school readiness. Neither warmth nor harsh discipline moderated the mediational model. In the sequential-mediation model, parent scaffolding and children’s persistence mediated the associations between warmth and harsh discipline and both latent constructs of school readiness. The sequential-mediation model provided a similar fit to the data as the moderated-mediation model. The results indicate that parental scaffolding can promote children’s persistence and later school readiness.

The approaches Hong Kong Chinese mothers adopt to teach their preschool children to prevent influenza: a multiple case study at household level.

BackgroundIn Hong Kong, the population is at risk of seasonal influenza infection twice a year. Seasonal influenza is significantly associated with the increased hospitalization of children. Maintaining personal hygiene and vaccination are the most effective measures to prevent influenza infection. Research demonstrates a positive relationship between the health practices applied by parents and the behaviour of their children highlighting the importance of parental heath education. However, there is minimal research that provides an understanding of how Hong Kong Chinese parents teach their children to prevent seasonal influenza.MethodsMixed methods research was undertaken that employed a multiple-case study approach to gain an understanding of parental teaching practices regarding seasonal influenza prevention. Purposive intensity sampling was adopted to recruit twenty parents and their healthy children. A thematic analysis was employed to examine the qualitative interview data and the quantitative survey data were examined descriptively. These data were then integrated to provide a more rigorous understanding of parental teaching strategies. Comparisons were made across cases to reveal commonalities and differences.ResultsFive major themes were identified: processes parents used to teach personal hygiene; parent-child interaction during teaching; approaches to managing children’s health behaviours; enhancing children’s healthy practices; and parents’ perspective of the role of the nurse in health promotion.ConclusionsThis study provided valuable insight into the approach of Hong Kong Chinese parents in teaching their children to prevent seasonal influenza. The results indicate that parents can be better supported to develop effective strategies to teach their preschool children hygiene practices for seasonal influenza prevention. Partnerships with community nurses can play a role in building effective parent-child interactions to enhance children’s learning and adoption of healthy practices.

Parental knowledge and attitude to children's eye care services

Background: The early years of life is very significant in the development of the eyes and vision, any disruption at this stage may lead to severe visual impairment or even blindness. Eye examination and treatment of children is not just a right of the child, but also a necessity to properly monitor and evaluate the eyes and visual structure. The responsibility to make decisions as regards eye care of a child lies on the parents or guardian.Purpose: To find out parents knowledge and attitude towards eye examination and treatment for their children and the effect of demographic factors such as gender, age, educational status and number of children.Method: A total of 468 parents including fathers and mothers (not necessarily couples) in Benin City participated in this cross-sectional observational study. A semistructured questionnaire seeking parents’ demographic characteristics, attitude towards eye examination and treatment, factors affecting the need for routine eye checkup for their children and parents’ knowledge about the eyes was used. The data was analyzed using SPSS. The test of significance was performed using Chi square and significance was taken at p < 0.05.Results: Only gender affected parents’ attitude towards eye examination for their children (p=0.003). There were no significant associations between parents’ attitude to eye care and age, educational status and number of children for both fathers and mothers. Majority (60%of fathers and 66.7% of mothers) would seek eye examination for their children only when the child has an eye complain or eye problem. The belief that routine eye exam is not necessary was reported as the major barrier in seeking eye examination for their children (60% of fathers and 57% of mothers). Other barriers include funds, time, the use of traditional medicine, and distance to eye clinic. Over 65% of parents would allow their children use any eye treatment at any age as long as the doctor states the necessity. Although, few parents would restrict their children from the use of glasses, eye surgery and eye training until the child is 10 years. Fathers were significantly (p=0.008) better educated about the eyes than mothers although, less than 30% of respondents has had education about eye care. Less than 1% of respondents know that a child is old enough to have a comprehensive eye examination at 6 months.Conclusion: Proper parent education and enlightenment strategies should be put in place by professional bodies and the government to make better parents attitude towards eye examination for the sake of an improved eye health for children.Keywords: Parents, Eye examination, Eye treatment, Children

Teaching children to save: What is the best strategy for lifetime savings?

We study the effect of alternative parental teaching strategies on the propensity to save and the amount saved during adulthood. Using a panel dataset from the Dutch DNB Household Survey we find that parental teaching to save increases the likelihood that an adult will save by 16%, and the saving amount by about 30%. The best strategy involves a combination of different methods (giving pocket money, controlling money usage, and giving advice about saving and budgeting). The effect of parental financial socialization is persistent with age, but decays at elder age for the propensity to save.

Perceptions of personal belief vaccine exemption policy: A survey of Arizona vaccine providers

BackgroundAs exemptions to school-entry requirements rise, vaccination rates in Arizona school children are approaching levels that may threaten public health. Understanding the interactions physicians have with vaccine-hesitant parents, as well as the opinions physicians hold regarding vaccination, exemption, and exemption policies, are critical to our understanding of, and ability to affect, vaccination exemption rates among children. MethodsSurvey responses were elicited from practitioners listed in The Arizona Partnership for Immunization and the Arizona Medical Association databases using a multi-pronged recruitment approach. Respondents provided data regarding their practice, comfort with parental refusal of individual vaccines, opinions about the beliefs held by parents that seek exemptions, parent education strategies, issues regarding providing care to unvaccinated children, and potential changes to Arizona policy. ResultsA total of 152 practitioners providing care to a wide geographic and economic population of Arizona responded to the survey. Respondents were generally strong advocates of all immunizations but were more accepting of parents’ desires to refuse hepatitis B and rotavirus vaccines. Almost all providers indicated that they see patients whose parents request to refuse or delay from vaccinations at least occasionally (88% and 97%, respectively). Only 37% of respondents indicated that they would be supportive of a policy requiring them to sign off on a parent's decision to refuse vaccination. ConclusionsVaccination providers in Arizona are generally very supportive of childhood immunizations but have varying comfort with exemption from individual vaccines. Responding providers tended to not support a requirement for a physician's signature for vaccine exemptions due to varying concerns regarding the implementation of such a practice.

Teaching Children to Save: What is the Best Strategy for Lifetime Savings?

We study the effect of alternative parental teaching strategies on the propensity to save and the amount saved during adulthood. Using a panel dataset from the Dutch DNB Household Survey we find that parental teaching to save increases the likelihood that an adult will save by 16%, and the saving amount by about 30%. The best strategy involves a combination of different methods (giving pocket money, controlling money usage, and giving advice about saving and budgeting). The effect of parental teaching is persistent with age, but decays at elder age for the propensity to save.

Teaching Children to Save and Lifetime Savings: What is the Best Strategy?

While the importance of saving is widely accepted, our understanding on how to encourage people to save is still quite weak. We provide robust evidence of the effect of alternative parental teaching strategies on the propensity to save and the amount saved by their children during adulthood. Using a panel dataset from the Dutch DNB Household Survey we find that parental teaching has a significant and large effects on saving attitude. Although the best teaching strategy involves a combination of different methods (giving an allowance, controlling how children spend their money, and talking about saving and budgeting), just giving an allowance is ineffective. Individuals who received no parental teaching tend to procrastinate their savings as long as they can.

Searching for the meaning of parenthood: An existential approach to parent education in the Hong Kong-Chinese context

This article discusses how an existential approach contributes substantially by rethinking the ideas of parent education and enriching parent and child well-being. The goals and principles of this approach, namely eliciting the full spectrum of the meaning of parenthood, fostering constructive parent–child and family interactions, extending parents’ concerns from their own children to the welfare of future generations and addressing the issue of gender in parenting, are explicated. Parent education strategies, evaluation studies and their relevance to the Hong Kong-Chinese cultural context are also taken into account. Finally, it considers some practical suggestions for promoting this approach in Hong Kong.

Perception and Adjustment of Adolescents Towards Divorce

Abstract The main aim of this study was to examine the perception and adjustment of adolescents towards divorce. This study used the Perception of Children towards Parental Divorce Scale by Kurdek and Berg, the Homeostasis Gestalt Process of by Woldt .This population consisted of all secondary school students in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. Random samples of 20 schools from four districts were selected in this study involving 300 students from single homes as respondents with 15 from each school. The findings showed that adolescents’ perception towards divorce can be both positive and negative. Adolescents faced the normal reactions towards divorce by fearing peer ridicule, by being involved in the blaming self and others for the divorce. The findings of the t-test showed no significant differences on most items on the perception towards divorce according to gender. In terms of adjustment the findings showed the adolescents both adjusted positively and negatively building relationships as well as showing resistance as an aftermath of the divorce. Counselling and parent education strategies need to be developed and implemented to help reduce the effects of divorce among adolescents.

Intervention targeting development of socially synchronous engagement in toddlers with autism spectrum disorder: a randomized controlled trial

Social and communication impairments are core deficits and prognostic indicators of autism. We evaluated the impact of supplementing a comprehensive intervention with a curriculum targeting socially synchronous behavior on social outcomes of toddlers with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Fifty toddlers with ASD, ages 21 to 33 months, were randomized to one of two six-month interventions: Interpersonal Synchrony or Non-Interpersonal Synchrony. The interventions provided identical intensity (10 hours per week in classroom), student-to-teacher ratio, schedule, home-based parent training (1.5 hours per month), parent education (38 hours), and instructional strategies, except the Interpersonal Synchrony condition provided a supplementary curriculum targeting socially engaged imitation, joint attention, and affect sharing; measures of these were primary outcomes. Assessments were conducted pre-intervention, immediately post-intervention, and, to assess maintenance, at six-month follow-up. Random effects models were used to examine differences between groups over time. Secondary analyses examined gains in expressive language and nonverbal cognition, and time effects during the intervention and follow-up periods. A significant treatment effect was found for socially engaged imitation (p = .02), with more than doubling (17% to 42%) of imitated acts paired with eye contact in the Interpersonal Synchrony group after the intervention. This skill was generalized to unfamiliar contexts and maintained through follow-up. Similar gains were observed for initiation of joint attention and shared positive affect, but between-group differences did not reach statistical significance. A significant time effect was found for all outcomes (p < .001); greatest change occurred during the intervention period, particularly in the Interpersonal Synchrony group. This is the first ASD randomized trial involving toddlers to identify an active ingredient for enhancing socially engaged imitation. Adding social engagement targets to intervention improves short-term outcome at no additional cost to the intervention. The social, language, and cognitive gains in our participants provide evidence for plasticity of these developmental systems in toddlers with ASD. http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00106210?term = landa&rank = 3.

Strengthening Homeless Parents with Young Children Through Meaningful Parent Education and Support

Homeless parents of young children confront several barriers to developing effective parenting skills and dispositions. Perhaps the major barrier is that of the negative stereotype that many people use to label them. They also often have not had positive parent role models and in many cases have had to deal with the issues of violence. Parent education and support strategies can play a key role in helping homeless parents develop positive and nurturing parenting skills.

Microregulatory patterns of family interactions: Cultural pathways to toddlers' self-regulation.

Pathways to children's self-regulation were examined in 2 cultures representing individualistic and collectivistic orientations. Family interactions were observed in 100 Israeli and 62 Palestinian couples and their firstborn child at 5 months and in a problem-solving task at 33 months. Patterns of gaze, affect, proximity, touch, and parental teaching strategies were coded. Child self-regulation was observed at child care locations. Among Israeli families, interactions involved face-to-face exchange, social gaze, object focus, and active touch in infancy and indirect parental assistance to toddlers. Among Palestinian families, interactions consisted of continuous contact, neutral affect, reduced negative emotionality, and concrete assistance. Levels of self-regulation were comparable and were predicted by culture-specific patterns. Social gaze, touch, and indirect teaching were found to predict self-regulation among Israeli toddlers; contact and concrete assistance were predictors among Palestinians. Discussion considers the ways early relational patterns mirror cultural philosophies on the self and differentially support self-regulation at the transition from family to the larger social context.

Including Parent Training in the Early Childhood Special Education Curriculum for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

Parent training has been shown to be a very effective method for promoting generalization and maintenance of skills in children with autism. However, despite its well-established benefits, few public school programs include parent training as part of the early childhood special education (ECSE) curriculum. Barriers to the provision of parent training include the need for parent education models that can be easily implemented in ECSE programs and the need for preparation of special educators in parent education strategies. This article describes a parent training model for children with autism developed for use in ECSE programs. The implementation of the program, teacher preparation, and preliminary outcomes and challenges will be discussed.

Including Parent Training in the Early Childhood Special Education Curriculum for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

Parent training has been shown to be a very effective method for promoting generalization and maintenance of skills in children with autism. However, despite its well-established benefits, few public school programs include parent training as part of the early childhood special education (ECSE) curriculum. Barriers to the provision of parent training include the need for parent education models that can be easily implemented in ECSE programs and the need for preparation of special educators in parent education strategies. This article describes a parent training model for children with autism developed for use in ECSE programs. The implementation of the program, teacher preparation, and preliminary outcomes and challenges will be discussed.

Parenting Programmes: The Best Available Evidence

Parenting programmes have been provided to a wide range of child and parent groups across a number of countries, but are they effective? This aim of this paper is to examine the findings from a number of systematic reviews that summarise the best available research evidence on the impact of these programmes on a range of parental and child outcomes. In addition to examining the findings from systematic reviews, the paper also takes a selective look at the uptake of parenting programmes in the United Kingdom, the evidence for effectiveness and the efficacy of adopting a population‐based approach to parent education. The findings from systematic reviews indicate that parenting programmes can have a positive impact on a range of outcomes, including improved child behaviour, increased maternal self‐esteem and relationship adjustment, improved mother–child interaction and knowledge and decreased maternal depression and stress. While there is a need for greater evaluation of the long‐term impact of these programmes, preliminary evidence indicates that these positive results are maintained over time, with group‐based, behaviourally orientated programmes tending to be more effective. While several recent trials indicate that that these programmes can be effective within the United Kingdom, high drop‐out rates may mean that they only reach a minority of parents. However, multi‐level parent education strategies such as the Australian Triple P Positive Parenting Strategy that incorporate an array of mediums aimed at different levels of need may provide an opportunity to reach a wider range of parents. This approach is currently being evaluated in order to ascertain whether it is effective in improving child outcomes in the general population. While there is no coherent strategy for parent training across the United Kingdom, within the Northern Ireland context there is a move towards the development of a family support strategy. While uptake of parent education and training is currently unknown the best available evidence highlights the positive impact that parent training can have, suggesting the importance of including parent education as one aspect of this strategy.

Competent Families, Collaborative Professionals

ABSTRACT A brief empowered parent education strategy was developed and evaluated on African American, Head Start parents against a conventional parent education approach. Parents who participated in this unique approach to parent education critiqued the content and process of a conventional parent education strategy and collaborated with professionals to design and conduct their own culturally relevant parent workshop. Engagement for parents who participated in the empowered strategy was significantly greater than parents who participated in the conventional one. Content was judged as more relevant and presenter behavior was judged as more respectful than in the conventional approach. Ninety percent of participants queried preferred empowered parent education when asked which workshop they would attend if given the choice. Implications for our understanding of the construct of empowerment as well as for the design and implementation of parent education strategies with low-income and minority parents are discussed.

Parent Education in Early Intervention

Parent education as a key component of early intervention has been greatly deemphasized during the past 15 years, we believe, because of the perceived inconsistencies between the purposes and goals of parent education and family-centered approaches to early intervention. We argue that research indicating that parent involvement is critical to early intervention effectiveness and that parents want information about specific ways they can help their children's development supports the need for parent education in early intervention. We propose that the early intervention field address the concerns expressed about the lack of sensitivity in parent education approaches, develop strategies for parent education that are consistent with contemporary family service concepts, address the need for explicit instruction of service providers in parent education strategies, and conduct research on the immediate and long-term effects of parent education on children and families.

Parental teaching strategies and children’s cognitive style

A total of 83 mothers and 74 fathers worked with their respective 4-year-old sons or daughters on four problem-solving tasks. Observers evaluated the interaction between parent and child with a 49-item teaching strategy Q-sort (TSQ). As measures of field dependence–independence (FDI), the Rod-and-Frame Test (RFT) and the Embedded Figures Test (EFT) were administered when the children were 4, 7, 11, and 14 years of age, thus permitting an examination of concurrent and long-term effects (up to 10 years). Distinctive differences in parental teaching strategies were observed contingent on the child’s FDI status. Parents of FI children granted them autonomy in the task and assisted with its cognitive aspects. A positive emotional ambience characterized the teaching situation. Parents of FD children were controlling and quite critical of their children’s performance. Effects of gender were noted. Whereas outcomes for the father–son and father–daughter pairing were comparable, the mother–son dyad generated more powerful effects than were observed in the mother–daughter dyad. Results point to consistencies between beliefs and behaviors of parents of FI and FD children. Interpretation is offered within the FDI theoretical framework and linkages to other theories of parent–child interaction are considered.

Correlates of parental teaching strategies in families of children evidencing normal and atypical development

Eighty-six families with a 6-year-old (target) child participated in a study of the relation between children's competency levels and parents' teaching strategies. Of these families, 44 included a target child who had been diagnosed as communication handicapped (CH) by service professionals in the community and was currently enrolled in an intervention program. The remaining families consisted of children who had no known disabilities or handicaps. Using a family-systems approach, it was hypothesized that the intellectual ability of both the target children and their siblings would be related to teaching behaviors evidenced by mothers and fathers during interactions with the target child. When the target child evidenced a communication handicap, however, it was hypothesized that family dynamics would be altered. As a result, the target child's ability level was expected to be more strongly related to the parents' behaviors when the target child was communication handicapped than when the child was nonhandicapped. The siblings' contributions to parental teaching strategies were expected to be diminished when there was a child in the family who evidenced atypical development, as in the case of a communication handicap. Correlational analyses and path analyses revealed these differences in patterns of relations obtained for families with and without a CH child, and provided some support for a systems approach to the study of determinants of parents' teaching strategies.