“My child will actually say ‘I am upset’… Before all they would do was scream”: Teaching parents emotion validation in a social care setting

Background: Emotion validation by parents has positive outcomes for children's emotional development, particularly in vulnerable families, but there is a lack of research on supporting health workers to teach emotion validation to parents whose children are open to early help and children's social services. There is also a theoretical debate about how best to conceptualize emotion validation and why it is beneficial to children. The purpose of the study was to test the feasibility of teaching emotion validation skills to parents and family workers in a social care setting, and to examine the effects of such teaching on children's emotion awareness and emotion regulation. Methods: This small scale qualitative feasibility study involved 11 parents (with children aged 2‐5 years) who were receiving early help social services, and 5 family workers. All parents took part in a 4 week course teaching emotionally validating parenting: either in a group class (6 parents) or one‐one delivery at home via a family worker (5 parents). Effects on parents, children, and family workers were assessed using semi‐structured interviews. Results: Six themes were identified in qualitative analysis: 1) Parent became more validating, 2) Parent's own vulnerability affected their ability to use the skills, 3) Child became more aware of emotions, 4) Child became calmer and more accepting of negative emotions, 5) Child transferred emotion validation to others, 6) Family workers incorporated emotion validation techniques into their professional practice. Conclusion: Results demonstrated the feasibility of teaching emotional validation skills to parents via both delivery methods, with positive outcomes reported for parents and children and positive impact reported on family worker practice. Qualitative analysis suggested that parental acceptance of child's negative emotions may be linked with greater self‐awareness of negative emotions in the child

Promoting optimal parenting and children’s mental health : a preliminary evaluation of the How-to Parenting Program

Parenting quality is widely accepted as a primary predictor of children’s mental health. The present study examined the effectiveness of a parenting program in fostering optimal parenting and child mental health. The selected program was How to talk so kids will listen & listen so kids will talk (How-to Parenting Program). This program was selected because its content corresponds closely to what the parenting style literature suggests is optimal parenting (i.e., includes structure, affiliation and autonomy support). Eleven groups of six to twelve parents were conducted in 7 local grade schools. The program, offered by two trained leaders, consisted of eight weekly sessions and taught a total of 30 skills. A total of 82 parents completed questionnaires both prior to and after the program. Participants’ children between eight and 12 years old (N = 44) completed questionnaires at school, at both assessment points. Repeated measures ANOVAs using parent reports indicated that structure, affiliation and autonomy support were increased after the program, compared to baseline. The level of child internalizing and externalizing problems also decreased significantly. Importantly, children reports confirmed that parental autonomy support increased from pre to post-test and child-reported well-being improved as well. The preliminary evidence from this pre-test versus post-test repeated measures design suggests that the How-to Parenting Program is effective in improving parenting style and in promoting children’s mental health and that future evaluation research examining the potential of this program is warranted