The Creation of an Online Curriculum to Promote Parenting Behaviors That Foster Early Childhood Development

This article describes the creation of the Keystones of Development, a curriculum on parenting and early child development for residency programs. Following Kern's 6-step model of curriculum development, we first determined a need for pediatrician training on key facets of early cognitive, self-regulatory, and social-emotional development and the parenting behaviors that promote them. We also ascertained interest among pediatric residency directors, who reported a lack of available curricula. A multidisciplinary group identified 6 key domains of early development for inclusion in a new, animated, self-guided curriculum. We designed the curriculum to have 2 parts: the first providing expert information about the key domains of development, and the second demonstrating opportunities to promote those domains of development during well-child visits. Since the curriculum was piloted, it has been adopted by nearly all pediatric residency programs and nearly half the family residency programs in the U.S.