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This pilot study provides a preliminary evaluation of the newly adapted one-to-one version of Tuning in to Kids (TIK), using a randomised-controlled design. One hundred and seven parents of a child...

Background: Parenting interventions based on emotion socialization (ES) theory offer an important theoretically driven approach to improve children’s emotional competence and behavioral functioning. Whether such approaches are effective in different cultural contexts, and whether the methods of delivery used are appropriate and acceptable, is an important empirical question. This paper reports on the preliminary evaluation of an ES parenting intervention, Tuning in to Kids (TIK), in Germany, Turkey, Iran, and China. Pilot studies of TIK have been conducted in each country with mothers of 4–6-year-old children. Method: The current study used qualitative methods with thematic analysis to explore the cultural appropriateness of the program in each site. Results: Culture-specific challenges were found across all sites in changing parents’ beliefs about the value of encouraging children’s emotional expression and supportive emotion discussions. Emotion literacy of parents depended on their access to emotion terms in their language, but also to parents’ experiences with emotions in their family of origin and culture-related beliefs about emotions. Adaptations were required to slow the speed of delivery, to address issues of trust with parents in seeking help, and to provide more opportunities to practice the skills and integrate different beliefs about parenting. Conclusion: While this ES parenting intervention has been developed in a Western cultural context, slight adaptations to the delivery methods (rather than change to the content) appeared to contribute to cultural appropriateness. The next step will be to quantitatively evaluate these adaptations of TIK in the different countries using randomized controlled studies.

Children’s behavior problems are often underpinned by deficits in emotional competence and require intervention to prevent them from escalating into more serious and persistent difficulties. Parenting factors such as poor Parental Reflective Functioning (PRF) and non-supportive emotion socialization practices are negatively related to children’s emotional competence and are modifiable factors that can be targeted in parenting interventions. Tuning in to Kids (TIK) is an emotion-focused group parenting program that teaches parents skills in understanding and regulating their own emotions, and how to respond supportively to their children’s emotion to foster emotional competence. This paper describes a newly adapted one-to-one version of TIK. Using three case studies, this paper illustrates the program’s implementation, challenges, and outcomes for parents and their children with behavior problems. The structure and content of this adapted format of TIK is outlined, and each parent’s progression through the program including changes to their meta-emotion beliefs, emotion socialization practices, and PRF are discussed. Recommendations are provided to assist facilitators with delivering TIK in the one-to-one setting.

In recent years emotion socialization theory (Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998) has begun to be used in parenting interventions, allowing an important and effective method for testing the theory. The current study is one such example, and examined moderators of program effects and mechanisms of change in an emotion-focused group parenting program, Tuning in to Teens (TINT), to determine whether an intervention with this theoretical approach would be effective in improving adolescent internalizing difficulties. Schools were randomized into intervention and control conditions. Data was collected from 225 parents and 224 youth during the young person's final year of elementary school (6th grade) and again, 10 months later in their first year of secondary school (7th grade). Those in the intervention condition received a 6-session program targeting parent emotion awareness/regulation, parental beliefs about emotion and parents' emotion coaching skills. Multilevel analyses were conducted to examine moderators of the intervention and regression analyses were conducted to examine mediators of program effects. Results showed greater benefits for intervention subgroups with high preintervention scores on youth anxiety. Parental internalizing difficulties and parental difficulties in emotion awareness/regulation did not moderate program effects. Mediation analyses supported emotion socialization theory and showed parents' who participated in the TINT parenting program reported improvements in their own awareness/regulation and emotion socialization, which were, in turn, related to reductions in youth internalizing difficulties. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

This study evaluated the Tuning in to Kids (TIK) parenting program delivered in a clinical setting with 77 parents and caregivers (hereafter referred to as “parents”) of children who had experienced complex trauma. The TIK program targets parent emotion socialization to improve children’s emotional and behavioral functioning. The study utilized a single-group design with pre- and post-intervention measures. Seventy-seven parents of children (aged 3–15 years) who had experienced complex trauma completed a ten-week version of the Trauma-Focused Tuning in to Kids program (TF-TIK). Measures examined parent reports of: emotion socialization; parent-child relationship; parent mental health; children’s emotional and behavioral functioning. Parents reported significantly improved emotion socialization, parent-child relationship, parent mental health, as well as child emotion regulation and behavior. This study provides initial support for the use of the TF-TIK parenting program in a clinical setting with parents of children who have experienced complex trauma in order to prevent or reduce problems.

Zusammenfassung. Es wird eine deutsche Version des Elterntrainings Tuning in to Kids vorgestellt. Das Training zielt über die Förderung elterlicher Strategien zur Emotionssozialisation auf eine Verbesserung kindlicher emotionaler Kompetenzen ab und kombiniert kognitiv-verhaltenstherapeutische Prinzipien mit einem emotionsfokussierten Ansatz. In einer kontrollierten Pilotstudie mit Prä-Posttest-Design (TG: n = 41, KG: n = 30; Alter der Kinder: 3 – 6 Jahre) wurden durch das Training nicht-supportive emotionsbezogene Überzeugungen und Reaktionen auf kindliche Emotionen reduziert sowie supportive Überzeugungen und Reaktionen aufgebaut. Für verschiedene Maße des emotionalen Familienklimas zeigten sich tendenziell positive Effekte. Trotz der Vorläufigkeit der Befunde sprechen die Ergebnisse für eine gute Trainierbarkeit elterlicher Strategien zur Emotionssozialisation und einen stärkeren Einbezug in Prävention und Intervention.

Introduction: For parents who have experienced childhood maltreatment, parenting an adolescent may trigger memories of abuse or neglect, intensifying parent-adolescent conflict. This paper extends ...

Fathers play an important role in shaping their children’s emotional competence although most literature has focused on the influence of mothers. Dads Tuning in to Kids (Dads TIK) is a parenting program that teaches fathers to coach their children in learning about emotions, while also helping fathers increase awareness and regulation of their own emotions. A randomized controlled efficacy trial of Dads TIK was conducted with a community sample of 162 fathers of a 4-year-old child attending preschool in Melbourne, Australia. Those allocated to the intervention attended a seven-session manualized group program. Questionnaires were completed by fathers, the fathers’ partners and the children’s teachers at baseline and 6-month follow-up. Results were that fathers in the intervention condition but not control condition reported significant increases in emotion socialization, parenting satisfaction and efficacy, and reductions in their children’s difficult behaviors. Partners of fathers in the intervention condition reported reductions in their own emotion dismissing parenting and improvements in psychological well-being. Partners and teachers reported significant improvements in children’s behavior across both intervention and control conditions. These findings suggest a father-focused program appears to lead to changes in fathers’ emotion socialization skills that may have benefits for partners’ functioning and children’s behavior.

IntroductionParents shape child emotional competence and mental health via their beliefs about children’s emotions, emotion-related parenting, the emotional climate of the family and by modelling emotion regulation skills. However, much of the research evidence to date has been based on small samples with mothers of primary school-aged children. Further research is needed to elucidate the direction and timing of associations for mothers and fathers/partners across different stages of child development. The Child and Parent Emotion Study (CAPES) aims to examine longitudinal associations between parent emotion socialisation, child emotion regulation and socioemotional adjustment at four time points from pregnancy to age 12 years. CAPES will investigate the moderating role of parent gender, child temperament and gender, and family background.Methods and analysisCAPES recruited 2063 current parents from six English-speaking countries of a child 0–9 years and 273 prospective parents (ie, women/their partners pregnant with their first child) in 2018–2019. Participants will complete a 20–30 min online survey at four time points 12 months apart, to be completed in December 2022. Measures include validated parent-report tools assessing parent emotion socialisation (ie, parent beliefs, the family emotional climate, supportive parenting and parent emotion regulation) and age-sensitive measures of child outcomes (ie, emotion regulation and socioemotional adjustment). Analyses will use mixed-effects regression to simultaneously assess associations over three time-point transitions (ie, T1 to T2; T2 to T3; T3 to T4), with exposure variables lagged to estimate how past factors predict outcomes 12 months later.Ethics and disseminationEthics approval was granted by the Deakin University Human Research Ethics Committee and the Deakin University Faculty of Health Human Research Ethics Committee. We will disseminate results through conferences and open access publications. We will invite parent end users to co-develop our dissemination strategy, and discuss the interpretation of key findings prior to publication.Trial registerationProtocol pre-registration: DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/NGWUY.

Childhood interpersonal trauma has profound effects on future relationships, including parent-adolescent relationships. However, the effects of an interpersonal trauma history on parenting are not well understood or effectively addressed in existing evidence-based family and parent-child therapies. This paper describes a systemic intervention, entitled Tuning Relationships with Music™ (TRM), for parents with a history of childhood abuse or neglect and their adolescent who are experiencing high levels of conflict in their relationship. A previously published pilot randomised controlled trial of TRM found that parent-adolescent dyads who received the intervention reported significantly reduced conflict, and that parents were observed to be more responsive and less reactive compared with a wait-list group. Written for counsellors, psychotherapists and others working therapeutically with parents and adolescents, the current paper outlines the key principles and core tasks covered in TRM and describes what is covered in sessions. Considerations for therapists, and future directions for research are also discussed.

We investigated outcomes of Dads Tuning In to Kids, a new seven-session group program targeting paternal emotion-socialization practices, which are related to children's social and emotional functioning. In a randomized control trial with 162 fathers of children between 3 and 6 years of age, intervention fathers (n = 87) and waitlist control fathers (n = 75) completed questionnaires at baseline (pre-program) and 10 weeks later (post-program). Compared to control fathers, intervention fathers statistically increased in empathy, encouragement of emotion expression, and parenting efficacy, and decreased in emotion-dismissing beliefs, dismissive reactions to children's negative emotions, and hostile parenting responses. They also reported improved child behavior. These findings offer preliminary support for this program for fathers.

For parents who have experienced childhood interpersonal trauma, the challenges of parenting an adolescent may trigger memories of abuse, intensifying conflict, resulting in negative cycles of relating and poorer responsiveness to emotions when parenting. This study examined whether Tuning Relationships with Music, a dyadic therapy for parents and adolescents, increased responsive parent-adolescent interactions and parent emotion coaching whilst reducing conflict and adolescent mental health difficulties. Twenty-six parent-adolescent dyads were recruited if parents had a trauma history and the dyad were currently having high levels of conflict. Dyads were randomly allocated into intervention or wait-list control and completed questionnaires and observation assessments at baseline and 4-month post-baseline follow-up. Those allocated to the intervention condition participated in 8 sessions of Tuning Relationships with Music. Trial registration: ANZCTR: 12615000814572. Parents and adolescents reported significant reductions in conflict. Parents in the intervention condition were observed to significantly improve their nonverbal communication, emotional responsiveness and non-reactivity toward their adolescent. Although parents reported they were less dismissive and punitive, and more encouraging of their adolescent’s emotions, and both parents and adolescents reported improvements in the adolescent’s mental health, these were not statistically significant. Findings suggest Tuning Relationships with Music may assist parents with a history of childhood interpersonal trauma and their adolescent to reduce conflict and increase responsive ways of relating that may positively impact the young person’s mental health. Future trials with a larger sample are warranted.

Dysregulation of emotions is a core feature of virtually all internalizing disorders. This chapter reviews the literature on relations between emotion dysregulation and internalizing disorders, with specific attention to the treatment of emotion dysregulation as a transdiagnostic focus. It describes several commonly used therapy approaches, considering how each targets emotion dysregulation. It also reviews the efficacy of programs with regard to reducing maladaptive emotion regulation strategies. Finally, it outlines how parent emotion dysregulation is targeted in emotion socialization parenting programs (the Tuning into Kids suite of programs). These programs provide parents with skills to manage their and their children’s emotions effectively. The chapter finishes with summarizing how treatments for emotion dysregulation may be strengthened.

This paper evaluates the real-world effectiveness of an emotion-focused, multi-systemic early intervention combining an emotion socialization parenting program with a child and school socio-emotional intervention for children with emerging conduct problems. Schools in lower socioeconomic areas of Victoria, Australia were randomized into intervention or wait-list control. Children in the first 4 years of elementary school were screened for behavior problems and those in the top 8 % of severity were invited to participate in the intervention. The study sample consisted of 204 primary caregivers and their children (Mage = 7.05, SD = 1.06; 74 % boys). Data were collected at baseline and 10 months later using parent and teacher reports and direct child assessment. Measures of parent emotion socialization, family emotion expressiveness, and children's emotion competence, social competence and behavior were administered. Results showed intervention parents but not controls became less emotionally dismissive and increased in empathy, and children showed better emotion understanding and behavior compared to control children. These outcomes lend support for an emotion-focused approach to early intervention in a real-world context for children with conduct problems.

This study investigated the relationship between parent emotion socialization and youth somatic complaints (SC) in an early adolescent sample using a longitudinal experimental design. An emotion-focused parenting intervention, which taught parent’s skills to improve their emotional competence and emotion socialization, was used to examine whether changes in parent emotion socialization affected the young person’s SC. Questionnaires were completed prior to intervention and 10 months later by 225 youth (121 intervention) and their parents. Results indicated that changes in parents’ awareness and regulation of emotion and emotion socialization practices resulted in reduced youth SC. These findings have important implications for the prevention of SC.

Research in child development suggests that parents' emotional competence and emotion socialization practices are related to children's emotional functioning, including child internalizing difficulties. This research has not yet been translated into intervention or prevention programs targeting parents of older children and adolescents. The current study examined the efficacy of the Tuning in to Teens parenting program in improving emotion socialization practices in parents of preadolescents and reducing youth internalizing difficulties. Schools were randomized into intervention and control conditions. Data were collected from 225 parents and 224 youth during the young person's final year of elementary school (sixth grade) and again 10 months later in their first year of secondary school (seventh grade). Multilevel analyses showed significant improvements in parental emotion socialization and reductions in youth internalizing difficulties for the intervention condition. This study provides support for the efficacy of the TINT parenting program with a community sample.

With a growing body of literature demonstrating the link between parent emotion socialization (the way in which parents model, react to, or teach children about emotions) and children’s emotional competence, there is an increasing interest in identifying the determinants of parent emotion socialization. Stress and the way parents regulate their emotional responses to stress are understood to play a significant role in determining parents’ capacity to socialize children’s emotional learning in positive ways. When parents have difficulty managing their own emotional responses (e.g., under conditions of high stress), their efforts to parent effectively and socialize their children’s emotional learning can be compromised. In this chapter, we review the empirical literature that has explored the relationship between stress, parent functioning (specifically parent’s own emotion awareness, regulation, and mental health), parent emotion socialization (especially emotion coaching) and children’s emotional, social, and behavioral functioning. In doing so, we consider how problematic ways of coping with stress are implicated in mental health difficulties and affect parents’ responsiveness to interventions. Then, we outline how we have targeted parent emotion regulation in our emotion socialization parenting program (Tuning in to Kids) that provides parents with skills to cope with stress more effectively. Finally, using data from our previously published intervention trials we reanalyze whether parent emotion awareness, regulation, and mental health are determinants of how well parents respond to this parenting program.

Background: This study evaluated a new prevention and early intervention parenting program: Tuning in to Kids. The program aims to improve emotion socialization practices in parents of preschool children and is based on research evidence that parents’ responses to, and coaching of, their children’s emotions influence emotional and behavioral functioning in children. Methods: Two hundred and sixteen primary caregiver parents of children aged 4.0–5.11 years were randomized into an intervention or waitlist control group. Parents in the intervention condition attended a 6-session group parenting program plus two booster sessions. Assessment occurred pre-intervention, post-intervention and at six-month followup. Questionnaires assessed parent emotion awareness and regulation, parent beliefs and practices of emotion socialization (emotion dismissing, emotion coaching, empathy) and child behavior (parent and teacher report). Observation of emotion socialization practices and child emotional knowledge was conducted pre-intervention and at follow-up with 161 parent–child dyads. Results: Parents in the intervention condition reported significant improvements in their own emotion awareness and regulation, increases in emotion coaching, and decreases in emotionally dismissive beliefs and behaviors. There were increases in parents’ observed use of emotion labels and discussion of causes and consequences of emotions with their children. Child emotional knowledge improved, and reductions in child behavior problems were reported by parents and teachers. Conclusions: This study provides support for the efficacy of a parenting intervention targeting parent emotion socialization practices that lead to improved child emotional knowledge and behavior. This preventative intervention targeting parents’ own emotion awareness and regulation, as well as emotional communication in parent–child relationships, is a promising addition to available parenting programs. Keywords: Tuning in to Kids, emotion coaching, emotion socialization, preschool children, intervention, prevention, behavior problems, parenting. Abbreviations: TIK: Tuning in to Kids. A significant body of research now exists on the socialization of children’s emotional competence and the influence that parent–child relationships have on children’s emotional and social development. However, while evidence now links aspects of parenting around emotions to child outcomes, there are few if any published studies of parenting interventions which draw on this theory and apply it in practice. The current study reports on the outcomes of the Tuning in to Kids parenting program, a program designed to target emotion socialization practices.

Parent emotion socialization plays an important role in shaping emotional and behavioral development during adolescence. The Tuning in to Teens (TINT) program aims to improve parents' responses to young people's emotions with a focus on teaching emotion coaching. This study examined the efficacy of the TINT program in improving emotion socialization practices in parents and whether this reduced family conflict and youth externalizing difficulties. Schools were randomized into intervention and control conditions and 225 primary caregiving parents and 224 youth took part in the study. Self-report data was collected from parents and youth during the young person's final year of elementary school and again in their first year of secondary school. Multilevel analyses showed significant improvements in parent's impulse control difficulties and emotion socialization, as well as significant reductions in family conflict and youth externalizing difficulties. This study provides support for the TINT program in reducing youth externalizing behavior problems.

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a multisystemic early intervention that included a comparison of an emotion- and behavior-focused parenting program for children with emerging conduct problems. The processes that moderated positive child outcomes were also explored. A repeated measures cluster randomized group design methodology was employed with three conditions (Tuning in to Kids, Positive Parenting Program, and waitlist control) and two periods (preintervention and 6-month follow-up). The sample consisted of 320 predominantly Caucasian 4- to 9-year-old children who were screened for disruptive behavior problems. Three outcome measures of child conduct problems were evaluated using a parent (Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory) and teacher (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire) rating scale and a structured child interview (Home Interview With Child). Six moderators were assessed using family demographic information and a parent-rated measure of psychological well-being (Depression Anxiety and Stress Scales short form). The results indicated that the multisystemic intervention was effective compared to a control group and that, despite different theoretical orientations, the emotion- and behavior-focused parenting programs were equally effective in reducing child conduct problems. Child age and parent psychological well-being moderated intervention response. This effectiveness trial supports the use of either emotion- or behavior-focused parenting programs in a multisystemic early intervention and provides greater choice for practitioners in the selection of specific programs.