{"title":"A Pilot Study to Examine the Effects of an Emotion Coaching Parenting Program for Chinese Parents of Preschoolers.","authors":"Suping Liu, Lixin Ren","doi":"10.1007/s11121-025-01780-4","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Parental emotion socialization is crucial to children's development, yet emotion-focused parenting programs are scarce in non-Western contexts. In this study, we developed a four-week emotion-focused parenting program based on the principles of emotion coaching for Chinese families with preschool-aged children. This program integrated parent group sessions with home-based parent-child shared reading. A total of 73 parents of preschoolers were recruited and randomly assigned to experimental and waitlist control groups. Three waves of data on parents' emotion-related parenting beliefs and practices and parenting stress were collected at pre-intervention, post-intervention, and three-month follow-up. Significant reductions in parents' punitive reactions, minimization reactions, and parent-child dysfunctional interactions were found in both the experimental and the waitlist control groups immediately after completion of the program. When combining data from both groups, a significant improvement in parents' expressive encouragement was observed at post-intervention and follow-up. Additionally, delayed effects of the program were found on parents' emotion-dismissing beliefs, problem-focused reactions, and overall parenting stress. This study was one of the first in China to develop an emotion-focused parenting program and rigorously examine its feasibility and effects, offering insights into the development of similar parenting programs in China.</p>","PeriodicalId":48268,"journal":{"name":"Prevention Science","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Prevention Science","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-025-01780-4","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENTAL & OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Parental emotion socialization is crucial to children's development, yet emotion-focused parenting programs are scarce in non-Western contexts. In this study, we developed a four-week emotion-focused parenting program based on the principles of emotion coaching for Chinese families with preschool-aged children. This program integrated parent group sessions with home-based parent-child shared reading. A total of 73 parents of preschoolers were recruited and randomly assigned to experimental and waitlist control groups. Three waves of data on parents' emotion-related parenting beliefs and practices and parenting stress were collected at pre-intervention, post-intervention, and three-month follow-up. Significant reductions in parents' punitive reactions, minimization reactions, and parent-child dysfunctional interactions were found in both the experimental and the waitlist control groups immediately after completion of the program. When combining data from both groups, a significant improvement in parents' expressive encouragement was observed at post-intervention and follow-up. Additionally, delayed effects of the program were found on parents' emotion-dismissing beliefs, problem-focused reactions, and overall parenting stress. This study was one of the first in China to develop an emotion-focused parenting program and rigorously examine its feasibility and effects, offering insights into the development of similar parenting programs in China.
期刊介绍:
Prevention Science is the official publication of the Society for Prevention Research. The Journal serves as an interdisciplinary forum designed to disseminate new developments in the theory, research and practice of prevention. Prevention sciences encompassing etiology, epidemiology and intervention are represented through peer-reviewed original research articles on a variety of health and social problems, including but not limited to substance abuse, mental health, HIV/AIDS, violence, accidents, teenage pregnancy, suicide, delinquency, STD''s, obesity, diet/nutrition, exercise, and chronic illness. The journal also publishes literature reviews, theoretical articles, meta-analyses, systematic reviews, brief reports, replication studies, and papers concerning new developments in methodology.