Parents' daily time with their children: a workplace intervention

Area of Science:

• Workplace interventions
• Parent-child relationships
• Child development

Background:

• Workplace policies often lack support for personal and family life.
• Limited research exists on the impact of workplace interventions on parent-child time.
• Understanding factors influencing parent-child interactions is crucial for child well-being.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate a workplace intervention aimed at increasing supervisor support and schedule control.
• To determine if the intervention significantly increased daily parent-child time at 12-month follow-up.
• To examine if intervention effects varied by parent or child gender, or child age.

Main Methods:

• A group randomized field trial was conducted in an IT division of a Fortune 500 company.
• 93 parents of children aged 9-17 completed daily telephone diaries for 8 consecutive days at baseline and 12-month follow-up.
• Participants reported daily time spent with their focal child.

Main Results:

• Parents in the intervention group showed a significant increase of 39 minutes per day in parent-child shared time.
• Parents in the Usual Practice group had a decrease of 24 minutes per day.
• Intervention effects were observed for mothers and daughters, but not for fathers or sons.

Conclusions:

• The workplace intervention successfully increased daily parent-child time, supporting the study's hypothesis.
• Redesigning work environments can positively influence parent-child interactions.
• Future research should explore how work redesign impacts the quality of parent-child activities vital for youth development.