Intervention effects on reflectivity explain change in positive parenting in military families with young children.

Abstract

Military families with young children often experience stress related to the unique circumstances of military families (e.g., deployment), and there is a need for interventions that are specifically tailored to military families with young children. The Strong Military Families (SMF) intervention responds to this need, and consists of two versions: A Multifamily Group (N = 34), and a Homebased psychoeducational written material program (N = 42; treated as the comparison group in this report). The Multifamily Group utilized an attachment-based parenting education curriculum and in vivo support of separations and reunions, encouraged peer support among parents, and connected families to additional services. In the present nonrandomized trial, we examine intervention effects on observed parenting behavior and affect, and test whether changes in parenting reflectivity account for intervention-related changes in observed parenting. Observed parenting behavior and affect were coded from the Caregiver-Child Structured Interaction Procedure (Crowell & Fleischmann, 1993), and parenting reflectivity was coded from the Working Model of the Child Interview (Zeanah & Benoit, 1995). Results suggest that relative to Homebased participants, Multifamily Group participants showed pre- and post- improvements in aspects of positive parenting (Emotional Responsivity, Positive Affect), but no decreases in negative parenting. The efficacy of the SMF Multifamily Group intervention does not appear to depend on parent risk level or preintervention parent behavior and affect. Further, a mediation model demonstrated that the intervention effects on parents' observed positive affect in an interaction task with their child were partially accounted for by intervention-related changes in their parenting reflectivity. (PsycINFO Database Record

A Qualitative Metasynthesis of Mothers’ Adverse Childhood Experiences and Parenting Practices

“…Positive parenting refers to practices, including consistent discipline, praise, and monitoring (Ryan, O'Farrelly, & Ramchandani, 2017). Positive parenting behavior is regarded as an effective parenting method for diverse populations such as military families, (Julian et al, 2018), parents of children with autism (Zand et al, 2018), and children with callous-unemotional traits (Clark & Frick, 2018). Positive parenting behavior promotes the child's well-being by ensuring a safe environment, engaging the child in learning activities, using appropriate discipline, having realistic expectations of the child, and promoting self-care in the parent (Sanders, Markie-Dadds, Tully, & Bor, 2000).…”

A Trauma-Informed, Family-Centered, Virtual Home Visiting Program for Young Children: One-Year Outcomes

“…It is notable that intervention effects for both mother and child affect and behavior were found across both parent-reported and observational measures. Although the broad body of research on family and child development routinely incorporates observational measures of parent–child interaction into their study designs, the vast majority of military family research relies on parent- and child-report (for exceptions see [ 28 , 50 ]). That parents receiving FOCUS-EC (as compared to parents in OPE) demonstrated greater improvements in observed behaviors during parent–child interactions provides stronger support for FOCUS-EC intervention efficacy than parent-report measures alone, because they obviate the possibility of shared method variance.…”

Stress Control for Military, Law Enforcement, and First Responders: A Systematic Review

“…Seven studies with a comparison group reported outcomes related to marriage and family. Three of these studied interventions specifically aimed at marriage (Baddeley and Pennebaker, 2011) or parenting (Julian et al, 2018a;Pinna et al, 2017) In brief, a multifamily therapy group (Julian et al, 2018a) did not have significant effects at two months, while the ADAPT program had significant effects for mothers but not fathers . A brief relationship-focused expressive-writing program had significant effects on marital satisfaction at one month (Baddeley and Pennebaker, 2011), as did stress-management training one year postintervention (controlling for combat exposure) (McKibben et al, 2009).…”

“…A cohort study published in three articles (Dodge et al, 2018;Julian et al, 2018a;Julian et al, 2018b) reported on Strong Military Families, a parenting intervention delivered in ten sessions via group therapy with other parents and one to three individual sessions. The program teaches stress-management skills and ways to respond to children appropriately.…”