Program Profile: Make Parenting A Pleasure

This prevention program seeks to build parenting skills and provide support to parents of young children, to reduce the likelihood of negative lifelong impacts on children’s physical, mental, and emotional health. The program is rated Promising. The program participants showed statistically significant improvements in parenting skills, knowledge of child development and behavior, and reduced parental depression, but not in family functioning, social support, nurturing, and parental stress.

A Promising rating implies that implementing the program may result in the intended outcome(s).

This program's rating is based on evidence that includes at least one high-quality randomized controlled trial.

Program Goals/Target Population

Make Parenting a Pleasure (MPAP) is a training program that promotes family resilience by bringing parents together to share and normalize their parenting experiences, learn about typical early childhood development and parenting strategies, develop a support network, and learn about other community resources available to them. The group-delivered MPAP program is designed to promote family resilience by strengthening five protective factors: 1) parental resilience, 2) social connections, 3) concrete support in times of need, 4) knowledge of parenting and child development, and 5) social and emotional competence in children. These five protective factors are grounded in the Strengthening Families Protective Factors Framework, which is the theoretical concept of the MPAP program (Munger et al. 2020; Center for the Application of Prevention Technologies 2017).

In promoting these protective factors, the program seeks to 1) reduce the likelihood of adverse child experiences (ACEs) and their lifelong impacts on a child’s physical, mental, and emotional health; and 2) build emotional regulatory capacity in both parents and children to facilitate a positive trajectory in familial functioning and resilience. This focus on capacity building is parallel with early childhood systems values of taking a family-centered, strengths-based approach to reduce developmental inequality (Odom and Wolery 2003).

Program Components

MPAP promotes resiliency by supporting parents through direct instruction and skills development. The MPAP comprehensive 12-week curriculum is designed for parents of children ages 0 to 8, to help them in acquiring tools to manage their own stress and life challenges, while developing the skills for nurturing the physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development of their children. During MPAP sessions, parents learn skills to cope effectively with stress by developing a greater ability to connect with others, creatively solve problems, communicate their feelings and needs, and seek help and social support when needed.

Parents meet with a trained professional parenting educator (PE) once a week for 2 hours each week in small groups, which includes about 10 parents per group. Each 2-hour session includes a 5- to 10-minute welcome and announcements, during which the PE helps parents get settled and ready for the group. Next there is a review from the previous session, during which the PE checks in with parents about the strategy they had been asked to try at home during the previous week. The PE then reviews the topics for discussion for the current week and begins the discussion of and activities for the content outlined for the session. The PE actively invites and encourages parents to contribute their own insights by posing questions frequently and affirming the parents’ responses both verbally and nonverbally. The groups are highly interactive, using discussion and experiential activities that incorporate elements of adult learning, with most sessions including a 5- to 7-minute video depicting strategies taught in the session.

Each parent receives a booklet that contains copies of handouts and worksheets used in each session. Discussion topics (or modules) range from self-care and self-regulation to handling children’s emotions and dealing with challenging behaviors. MPAP discussion modules include the following:

• Getting started. This session discusses how parenting is the most challenging and most important job there is; how parents are the foundation of the family; and how positive parenting skills do not come naturally, they are learned.
• Nurturing: Taking care of ourselves. This session discusses how the whole family benefits when parents find ways to nurture and take care of themselves regularly.
• Understanding stress. This session discusses how stress is a normal part of life and how reducing stress helps parents feel more in control of their lives,
• Stress and anger management techniques. This session discusses how stress is a normal part of parenting, how managing stress effectively is critical to parenting children effectively, and how parents are responsible for teaching and modeling coping mechanisms for stress.
• Managing anger, modeling alternatives. This session discusses how anger is a normal emotion and is always okay, but how parents actin on anger may help or hurt their children and themselves.
• The dance of communication: Nonverbal. This session discusses how actions speak louder than words, especially with babies and young children. The session also discusses how effective communication begins with what the parents do.
• Communication: Listening skills. This session discusses how listening is at least as important as talking and often harder to do.
• Verbal communication. This session discusses how words are powerful and that it is important to use words thoughtfully, as well as how learning to communicate positively takes practice.
• Child development: The basics. This session discusses how every child develops at his or her own pace and how understanding child development helps parents appreciate and have a realistic expectation of their child(ren).
• Discipline: Laying the foundation. This session discusses how paying attention to children when they are doing well can keep them from “acting out” to get their parents’ attention.
• Discipline: Parent’s toolbox. This session discusses how parents need to be aware of possible solutions, in order to make positive discipline decisions.
• Discipline: Challenging behaviors. This session discusses how prevention may be the best medicine, and how parents need strategies for their children’s challenging behaviors.
• Closure: Saying goodbye. This session discusses how developing positive parenting skills is an ongoing process and that it is important to acknowledge growth and change in order to strengthen positive changes.

Additionally, childcare is provided in the same facility, typically in a room adjacent to the parents’ meeting room so that parents can meet as a group without their children.

Study 1

Munger and colleagues (2020) conducted a randomized experiment to investigate the effectiveness and usability of the Make Parenting a Pleasure (MPAP) program on a variety of outcomes related to the Protective Factors Framework.

The study population consisted of 59 parents with children ages 0?8 years old, who voluntarily sought parenting training through Oregon agencies that were currently offering the MPAP curriculum. These agencies (e.g., nonprofit parenting education agencies or county health departments) offered free training for families who were experiencing one or more stressors (i.e., poverty, unemployment, social isolation, family/personal history of abuse, alcohol or drug use, depression, or other mental health problems) and were at risk for perpetrating abuse or neglect. After staff received consent from parents to participate in the study, the study authors assigned participants to the MPAP treatment group (n = 32) or the waitlist control group (n = 27) using urn randomization.

Parents in the treatment condition received immediate access to the 12-week MPAP. Of the 32 treatment group parents, 96.6 percent were female, 65.6 percent were white, 15.6 percent were Hispanic/Latino, 6.3 percent were Native American, 3.1 percent were Asian American, 3.1 percent were multiracial, and two participants (6.3 percent) declined to indicate their race/ethnicity. Approximately 78.0 percent of parents were parenting with a partner, and about 22 percent were parenting by themselves. Half of the parents had one child, 31.3 percent had two children, and 18.7 percent had more than three children. In terms of age, 51.6 percent of the female parents (n = 31) were 20? 30 years old, 35.5 percent were 31?40, and 12.9 percent were 41 and older.

In the waitlist control condition, parents were referred to the next available MPAP group session, which typically began after the 12-week treatment group ended their program (after a wait time of 3?4 months). Of the 27 waitlist control parents, 92.6 percent were female, 66.7 percent were white, 7.4 percent were Hispanic/Latino, 7.4 percent were Native American, 3.7 percent were Black, 3.7 percent were Asian American, and 11.1 percent were multiracial. Approximately 48.1 percent of parents parenting with a partner, and 51.9 percent were parenting by themselves. About 40.7 percent of parents had one child, 44.4 percent had two children, and 14.8 percent had three or more children. In terms of age, 55.6 percent of male and female participants were 20?30 years old, 44.4 percent were 31?40 years old, and there were no participants who were 41 and older.

All 59 study participants completed the pretest assessment survey, and 43 participants (73 percent) completed the posttest survey. The posttest was mailed to both treatment and waitlist control participants 12 weeks after the treatment group completed the pretest. Those who failed to complete the posttest assessment were compared with those who completed both assessments on their study condition, demographic characteristics, and all pretest measures of the outcomes. The study indicated that failure to complete both assessments was not related to study condition or any demographic characteristics. The treatment and control groups did not differ on any measure, except for single parenting; the control group had a higher percentage of single parents than the treatment group. For both groups, parents who were no longer interested in participating in the study were placed into the MPAP group as a non-experimental participant, and their demographic information was not included in the study. To adjust for missing posttest data, which ranged from 27 to 31 percent, an intent-to-treat analysis was conducted using demographic factors as auxiliary variables.

Outcomes of interest included family functioning, social support, nurturing, parental depression, parental disciplinary practices, parenting stress, and child development and behavior knowledge. The Protective Factors Survey (PFS) was used to measure subdomains of family functioning, social support, and nurturing. The following three subscales from the PFS measured these multiple protective factors against child maltreatment:

1. The Family Functioning subscale included five items with a 7-point Likert response scale (1 = never; 7 = always). Participants were asked to describe how often each statement was true for them or their family (e.g., ?In my family, we talk about problems;? ?My family pulls together when things are stressful?).
2. The Social Support subscale asked parents to respond to three items on a 7-point Likert response scale (1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree). Participants rated their level or agreement or disagreement with each statement (e.g., ?I have others who will listen when I need to talk about my problems;? ?If there is a crisis, I have others I can talk to?).
3. The Nurturing subscale included four items with a 7-point Likert response scale (1 = never; 7 = always). Participants were asked to describe how often the activity described in each item happened in their family. For example, ?I am able to soothe my child when they are upset;? ?I spend time with my child doing what they like to do? (Swartz et al. 2016).

Parental (postnatal) depression was measured using eight items from the 10-item Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS). This self-rating scale was used to evaluate levels of parental depression during the previous week. Twelve items from the 30-item Parenting Scale assessed parental discipline practices. The scale measures three stable factors that have been identified as dysfunctional parental discipline behaviors: 1) laxness, 2) over-reactivity, and 3) hostility. Participants rated their skills on a 6-point Likert scale (0 = low; 6 = high) in response to statements such as ?Listen to my child and understand their feelings? and ?Find positive ways to guide and discipline my child(ren).? The Parental Stress Scale (PSS), which consisted of an 18-item inventory, measured overall parental stress by asking parents how much they agreed or disagreed with their typical parenting experiences (e.g., ?I am happy in my role as a parent;? ?I feel overwhelmed by the responsibility of being a parent?) on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). The above scales, were then used as composite scores to measure child development and behavior knowledge.

A general linear model was used to test the efficacy of the program at posttest, with the study conditions as a two-level predictor (1 = treatment and 0 = control) and with the pretest outcome scores and the single parenting indicators as covariates. The study authors did not conduct subgroup analyses.

Make Parenting a Pleasure (MPAP) has been disseminated nationwide and implemented within institutions that include schools, hospitals, and Head Start programs, as well as within other parenting education programs, child abuse prevention programs, and programs for incarcerated parents. In Oregon, MPAP is on the Oregon Parenting Education Collaborative (OPEC) list of approved curricula for use in statewide Early Learning Hubs with the Children’s Trust Fund of Oregon.

Parenting educators (PEs) receive a 2-day MPAP training from Parenting Now. In addition, PEs work from Parenting Now curriculum booklets and introduce each topic verbally and with bulleted points on a flip chart or project it electronically. The groups are highly interactive, using discussion and experiential activities that incorporate elements of adult learning. When possible, material is presented visually or experientially, such as emptying and filling cups with water to illustrate a discussion of daily stressors. PEs are provided with suggested scripts, question prompts for the parents, bullet points for the flip charts, and estimated time allotments for each discussion or activity.

For additional information on the MPAP program, visit the Parenting Now website: https://parentingnow.org/.

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

Following are CrimeSolutions-rated programs that are related to this practice:

Preventive Child Maltreatment Programs

Preventive child maltreatment programs are designed to prevent physical child abuse or neglect by educating expectant and new parents in parenting skills, coping with stressors, and stimulating child development. This practice is rated Effective for preventing child abuse, neglect, and maltreatment.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

Victimization - Child abuse/neglect/maltreatment

Early Family/Parent Training Programs

This practice includes programs that seek to provide families and parents with training and skills to help promote their children’s physical, mental, and social skills. The practice is rated Effective for reducing child problem behaviors for children whose families participated in early family/parent training programs, compared with control group children whose families did not participate in programming.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

Juvenile Problem & At-Risk Behaviors - Multiple juvenile problem/at-risk behaviors

Why might a practice's outcome ratings differ from the ratings of specific programs encompassed by that practice?