Parent education for adolescent mothers

Adolescent parents are often ill prepared to provide their new babies with the care and stimulation they need for satisfactory development. A series of age-paced parent education booklets was designed to help these young parents acquire the information, knowledge, and confidence they need to improve their parenting practices. This is a report of a study designed to evaluate the impact of this parent education program on the parenting practices of adolescent mothers. The parenting practices of seventy young mothers who had received the parenting booklets monthly during their babies' first year of life were compared with those of a comparable group of eighty-five adolescent mothers who had not participated in the program. Results suggest that receiving the booklet series was associated with more positive parenting attitudes, beliefs, and practices. Implications for preventive services are discussed.