None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
This research will evaluate a new parenting program, Tuning in to Toddlers (TOTS), an intervention with goals to prevent the onset of social, emotional and behavioural difficulties in young children. TOTS aims to improve parents’ emotional responsiveness and emotion regulation in order to assist their child to begin to understand and regulate their emotional reactions and to reduce stress for parent and child. There are few available evidence based programs for parents of toddlers and none have taken an emotion-focused approach despite early childhood being a time of intense emotions for parents and a critical time in toddler’s emotional development. TOTS will focus on and promote emotional competencies, strengthening the parent-child relationship that will reduce the likelihood of child emotional or behavioural problems during these early years. The study will recruit 290 parents of a 2-3 year old child through maternal and child health centres, Playgroups Victoria and childcare services in Melbourne. Participants will be randomised to either TOTS or a wait-list control group. TOTS participants will attend a 6-session parenting program while wait-list participants will be offered the program after a 15-month waiting period (unless they require clinical intervention). Participants will complete measures at baseline, immediately post- intervention (intervention participants only) and at 15-month follow-up. To assess the efficacy of TOTS we will use well validated measures including questionnaires about parenting and children’s functioning; a parent-toddler observation task measuring parental emotion coaching, parental emotional responsiveness and toddler emotion regulation; and hair samples to assess parent and toddler stress levels. TOTS is a manualised intervention and measures will be used to determine program acceptability and fidelity. Statistical analyses will compare participants in the two groups at follow-up. Outcomes will be reported in peer-reviewed journals, at conferences and in a facilitator manual of TOTS that will enable program dissemination.
Interventions
TOTS is a six-session, weekly group program running for 2 hours for parents of toddlers. The program aims to teach parents to assist their young child to understand and manage their emotions. TOTS also provides parents with skills in understanding and managing their own emotions thereby reducing the stress of parenting a young child and improving their mental health. The program is delivered using psychoeducation, role play practice, watching DVD material, group discussion, exercises and home ac
TOTS is a six-session, weekly group program running for 2 hours for parents of toddlers. The program aims to teach parents to assist their young child to understand and manage their emotions. TOTS also provides parents with skills in understanding and managing their own emotions thereby reducing the stress of parenting a young child and improving their mental health. The program is delivered using psychoeducation, role play practice, watching DVD material, group discussion, exercises and home activities. The program is facilitated by program authors who are psychologists or parent educators. The program is delivered using a structured manual with fidelity checklists used to ensure maximum adherence to the program.
Sponsors
University of Melbourne
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Other
Primary purpose
Prevention
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
16 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
parents with a child between 18 months and 36 months of age who attend target childcare centres, maternal child heath centres and playgroups.
Exclusion criteria
Insufficent English language skills to complete questionnaires or attend the parenting program
Outcome results
None listed