ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the state of parenting interventions. It describes the scope of programmatic efforts to improve child outcomes via direct work with parents, and offers illustrations of interventions informed by different theoretical traditions. Parenting interventions seek to promote positive outcomes or prevent negative outcomes for children and adolescents by providing support to the child’s primary caregiver. The parenting intervention landscape includes a broad range of content and methods. A common theory of change in parenting interventions employs the following three-part pathway: parenting cognitions, parenting practices and child outcomes. Attachment theory’s concept of parental sensitivity directly influenced the ways in which sensitive parenting is promoted in the Video-feedback Intervention to Promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline. A general approach to adaptations of established interventions for families experiencing a specific developmental issue seems to involve some infusion of information about the issue into the intervention’s core strategy.
