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Effects of a positive discipline program on parenting outcomes
1School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Positive Discipline in Everyday Parenting (PDEP) effectively reduced physical and emotional punishment in parents. This program also increased proactive parenting, promoting healthier child-rearing practices.
Area of Science:
- Child Development
- Parenting Interventions
- Behavioral Science
Background:
- Parental punishment is prevalent and negatively impacts child well-being.
- Positive Discipline in Everyday Parenting (PDEP) is a group program designed to reduce punitive parenting.
- PDEP aims to foster positive discipline strategies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the effectiveness of the Positive Discipline in Everyday Parenting (PDEP) program.
- To examine changes in self-reported parenting practices among parents of young children.
- To assess the impact of PDEP on reducing punitive behaviors and increasing positive parenting.
Main Methods:
- A quasi-experimental design was employed with 183 Canadian parents of children aged 2-6 years.
- Participants were assigned to either the PDEP intervention group (101 parents) or a wait-list comparison group (82 parents).
- Data were collected across five cycles from 2018-2024 using various outcome measures.
Main Results:
- Parents completing PDEP showed a significant reduction in physical and emotional punishment compared to the control group.
- A significant increase in proactive parenting strategies was observed in the PDEP group.
- Effect sizes ranged from small for emotional punishment to large for physical punishment and proactive parenting.
Conclusions:
- The PDEP program is effective in decreasing parental punishment and promoting proactive parenting.
- PDEP differs from traditional behavior management interventions.
- Further research with randomized designs and complementary outcome measures is recommended.
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