Cell Phones Are Everywhere!
Today 75% of U.S. adults own a smart phone, compared to 35% in 2011. A hefty 92% of 18- to 29-year-olds own a smartphone, versus 42% of adults ages 65 and older. As researchers Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff have found, when parents let screen time interrupt their social interactions with their young children, it can hinder their young children’s development. It’s up to parents to use cell phones responsibly, as a resource rather than a disruption, during their activities with their children. Can family services providers turn the ubiquitous presence of cell phones into an advantage for families and children?
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Tags:
parenting outcomes,
Parenting Assessment,
parent-child interaction,
engagement-parent, family, community,
SafeCare,
maternal depression,
retention,
PCI,
cell phones,
text messaging
A recent article in The Atlantic by Olga Kahzan reported on the controversy surrounding Triple P. Many of you have heard of the Triple P – Positive Parenting Program ®. This is one of a number of models for supporting families to improve their parenting skills to develop more nurturing relationships and sensitive interactions with their children. Triple P is also one of the most extensively researched programs.
Triple P aims to prevent emotional and behavioral problems and create a positive family environment for children to thrive. It was developed using a public health perspective to provide interventions geared to multiple levels of need, ranging from community awareness of positive parenting, to seminars and group classes, to home-based family intervention. There are also Triple P variations designed for targeted populations, such as families of children with special needs, those who are overweight, teenagers and families experiencing separation/divorce. Organizations may choose the levels and variations that fit their communities’ needs. Triple P claims an advantage over other family support programs due to this flexible range of service intensity, a broad evidence base, and a large scale of dissemination in 25 countries.
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Tags:
parenting outcomes,
Triple P,
child abuse/neglect prevention,
family support-partnership-services,
parenting classes
Earlier this month I was privileged to co-present a workshop with two KIPS parenting assessment users at the 2015 Strong Families AZ Home Visiting Conference, sponsored by Prevent Child Abuse Arizona and attended by many of those involved in Arizona Strong Families. The wide variety of workshops packed into the two-day conference targeted topics of interest to the full gamut of conference participants -- Home Visitors, Supervisors and Administrators.
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Tags:
parenting outcomes,
Parenting Assessment,
home visiting,
Parents as Teachers,
parenting program funding - advocacy
In our last post of 2014, we discussed the White House Summit on Early Education and how James Heckman’s brief speech produced a notable a change in the panel discussions that followed. At the time of that post I was aiming to get a copy, dear reader, so I could share his remarks with you accurately and in more detail. The speech is now available, so I think we are starting 2015 right by delving into Heckman's remarkable address.
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Tags:
parenting outcomes,
parenting evidence,
White House Summit,
parenting program funding - advocacy
In the US we have been fighting to close the achievement gap of children living in disadvantaged circumstances since Lyndon Johnson declared the War on Poverty 50 years ago. Efforts to close the gap have advanced from many angles – economic, housing, nutrition, crime prevention and education. Research on early intervention programs, such as the Perry Preschool and the Chicago Child-Parent Center, have proven the long-term benefits of comprehensive services to young children (birth to 5 years), their families and communities. Yet, we still haven’t solved the problem.
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Tags:
parenting outcomes,
Parenting Assessment,
parenting divide,
achievement gap,
DANCE
My head is swirling! I’ve just returned from another marvelous National Smart Start Conference sponsored by the North Carolina Partnership for Children. The 2014 Agenda offered 2 keynotes, 6 Featured Sessions, 76 workshops, and plenty of opportunities for networking. There was something for everyone working in early childhood education and family support programs. You can take a look at workshops offered within the following conference tracks by following these links below.
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Tags:
parenting outcomes,
Parenting Assessment,
Smart Start,
adverse experiences/toxic stress
The recognition of the importance of quality parenting continues to grow. I was surprised to see a paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics describing the use of parenting groups in pediatric settings with the goal of preventing behavior disorders. The research performed by Ellin Perin and co-workers is entitled Improving Parenting Skills for Families of Young Children in Pediatric Settings.
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Tags:
parenting outcomes,
parenting behavior,
Parenting Assessment,
parent-child interaction
This week we share with you an exciting paper just published in Pediatrics, by Judith Carta and coworkers, entitled Randomized Trial of a Cellular Phone-Enhanced Home Visitation Parenting Intervention, Pediatrics 2013;132:S167–S173. We know well that the families most in need of parenting supports are the ones hardest to engage in services. Carta and her colleagues hypothesized that frequent contact with cell phones would improve outcomes. We have been anxiously anticipating the publication of this study because it is the first randomized controlled trial to assess parenting using the Keys to Interactive Parenting Scale as an outcome measure.
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Tags:
parenting feedback,
parenting outcomes,
parent improvement,
parenting behavior,
Parenting Assessment
Good things certainly do come in small packages! In particular, I am referring to a short 137- page book entitled Giving Kids a Fair Chance (A Strategy that Works) by James Heckman from the University of Chicago. As a Nobel Prize winning economist, James Heckman’s writing is often highly technical. However, he wrote this powerful little book for the public. This book should be required reading for all working in our field, and for legislators and policy makers.
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Tags:
parenting outcomes,
Parenting Assessment,
assessing parenting,
child health,development, learning
In 2012, the United Kingdom’s Departments of Health and Education released a report called Supporting Families in the Foundation Years. The report aimed to provide a framework of services for families, from pregnancy to child’s age five, to promote achievement and social and emotional well-being as adults. With support from the WAVE Trust, an addendum entitled Conception to age 2 – the age of opportunity has been published. Both reports stress the importance of the early years in laying the foundation for healthy productive adult lives. The recent report focuses on services offered prenatally through the first two years of life. The new report reviews the research literature and makes a convincing case that investing in the earliest years makes for good public policy. Particularly notable, the report stresses not only health and educational outcomes, but includes mental health outcomes. It emphasizes the influence of early relationships on attachment in promoting infant mental health, which lays the foundation for health, achievement and well-being over a lifetime.
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Tags:
parenting outcomes,
Parenting Assessment,
assessing parenting
