A Randomized Controlled Trial of Two Parenting Interventions on Enhancing Parental Resilience Resources and Reducing Children’s Problem Behaviors in Chinese Cross-Boundary Families: Positive Benefits and Moderation Effects

• Published in: Behavior therapy Vol. 55; no. 3; pp. 485 - 498
• Main Authors: Bu, He, Liu, Iris Kam-fung, Yu, Nancy Xiaonan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01-05-2024
• Subjects: Adult; Child; Child, Preschool; China; cross-boundary families; East Asian People; Emotional Regulation; Female; Hong Kong; Humans; information provision; Male; moderation; Mothers - psychology; Parenting - psychology; parenting intervention; Parents - education; Parents - psychology; Problem Behavior - psychology; Resilience, Psychological; Self Efficacy; Hong Kong; China; cross-boundary families; information provision; parenting intervention; emotional regulation; moderation
• ISSN: 0005-7894; 1878-1888
• DOI: 10.1016/j.beth.2023.08.007

•An RCT was conducted for Chinese cross-boundary families.•Two arms, emotion regulation (ER) and information provision (IP), were delivered.•Both interventions increased parental self-efficacy.•Both interventions reduced children’s problem behaviors.•A moderation effect on children’s outcome was found in the IP intervention.
Daily cross-boundary schooling between Shenzhen and Hong Kong constitutes a constant challenge for Chinese cross-boundary families in terms of parenting burden. To address their most urgent parenting needs, we adapted and evaluated two intervention approaches—improving emotional regulation and providing knowledge about Hong Kong. A cluster randomized controlled trial with repeated assessments (pre-, post-intervention, and one-month follow-up) was adopted to evaluate the intervention effects on the increases of parental resilience resources and reduction of children’s problem behaviors. We further conducted moderation analyses to investigate whether parents with more increases in parental resilience resources would report a greater reduction in children’s problem behaviors. A total of 214 mothers of cross-boundary families were randomly assigned to the emotional regulation arm (ER, n = 120) or the information provision arm (IP, n = 94). Both intervention arms showed positive effects on emotional regulation strategies, and the IP arm outperformed the ER arm in knowledge acquisition. Both arms showed significant and comparable improvements in parental self-efficacy and children’s problem behaviors. Moreover, participants in the IP arm who reported more improvements in parental resilience resources showed a greater reduction in children’s problem behaviors. By adapting two interventions to a new population of cross-boundary families, this trial extended the benefits from parents to children and demonstrated that the improvement of parental resilience resources makes a difference in reducing children’s problem behaviors in the IP arm. Future studies are suggested to focus on parental resilience resources and maximize the benefits on children’s outcomes.