Peer-reviewed article
Part II: Can School-Based Delivery of an Evidence-Based Parenting Program Promote the Home-School Partnership? Parental Self-Regulation as the Mechanism of Change.
Ma T, Tellegen CL, Hodges J, Boyle C, Sanders MR ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study tested whether a parenting program delivered through schools could improve relationships between families and schools by strengthening parents' ability to regulate their behaviour and emotions. The research followed 912 parents across 160 Australian primary schools and found that parents who improved their self-regulation skills also increased their communication with teachers and involvement in school activities. The findings suggest that helping parents develop better self-regulation may be one way that school-based parenting programs benefit children's learning and well-being.
Key points
- A cluster randomized trial of Triple P-Positive Parenting Program showed post-intervention improvements in parent-teacher communication and parent school-based involvement
- Parental self-regulation improvements were identified as the mechanism linking the parenting program to better home-school partnerships
- Bidirectional effects were found between parental self-regulation and parent-teacher communication
- Unidirectional effects were found for parent school-based involvement, with improved parental self-regulation leading to greater school involvement
- The home-school partnership was not a direct target of the intervention, suggesting spillover benefits of the program
Limitations
The study was conducted in Australia and primarily focused on primary school-aged children, so findings may not generalize to other countries or age groups. The mechanism of change analysis cannot establish causation with complete certainty, as unmeasured confounding variables may explain the observed associations.
Abstract
High-quality partnerships between families and schools can bring enormous benefits to the development, learning, and well-being of children. Although past literature has frequently identified the parenting self-efficacy element of parental self-regulation as a key determinant of the strength of the home-school partnership, this knowledge base relies heavily on cross-sectional studies. This paper follows on from an article in Family Process reporting the findings of a cluster randomized trial of an evidence-based parenting program designed to promote parental self-regulation, namely the seminar version of the Triple P-Positive Parenting Program. The trial found post-intervention improvements in two domains of the home-school partnership, namely parent-teacher communication and parent school-based involvement. Given that the home-school partnership was not a target of the intervention, the current study conducted a mechanism of change analysis to examine whether improvements in the home-school partnership could be attributed to post-intervention improvements in parental self-regulation. Data were collected from a sample of 912 parents of children attending 160 different primary schools across three Australian states. Following a Random Intercept Cross-lagged Panel Model (RI-CLPM) approach, bidirectional within-participant effects between parental self-regulation and parent-teacher communication were found, while unidirectional within-participant effects were found for parent school-based involvement. The findings provided support to the proposed theory of change where improvements in parental self-regulation are the underlying mechanism behind reported post-intervention improvements in the quality of the home-school partnership. The findings also support the potential spillover benefits of school-based delivery of evidence-based parenting programs. Trial Registration: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry: ACTRN12623000852651.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- School-based delivery of Triple P-Positive Parenting Program (seminar version), designed to promote parental self-regulation
- Population
- 912 parents of children attending 160 primary schools across three Australian states
Key finding
Post-intervention improvements in parent-teacher communication and parent school-based involvement were observed