Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T07:26:57.388Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Families Can Do Coping: Parenting Skills in the Early Years

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 May 2014

Erica Frydenberg ,
Jan Deans  and
Rachel Liang
Erica Frydenberg
Affiliation:
Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne, 100 Leicester St, Carlton, Victoria 3010, Australia
Jan Deans
Affiliation:
The University of Melbourne, 40 Clarke Street, Abbotsford, Victoria 3067, Australia
Rachel Liang*
Affiliation:
Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne, 100 Leicester St, Carlton, Victoria 3010, Australia
*
address for correspondence: Rachel Liang, Registered Psychologist, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne, 100 Leicester St, Carlton, Victoria 3010. E-mail: rliang@unimelb.edu.au
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Parenting programmes are very much a part of the international landscape in Western communities. Coping skills provide a useful resource for parents and children in managing their everyday lives, both together and individually. Following a 5-year research programme with parents and children in an early years setting, Families Can Do Coping was developed as a comprehensive parenting skills programme that incorporates parents’ understanding of their own coping and that of their children. The programme was delivered with the twin aims of teaching communication and coping skills to parents. In 2012, five 2-hour sessions were delivered to 19 parents in an Early Learning Centre at the University of Melbourne. The five-session programme focused on providing parents with information regarding coping skills and the use of visual tools to assist parents to engage with their children in conversations about coping. Additionally, parents completed a pencil-and-paper coping skills evaluation for their child. The programme outcomes included perceptions of parents’ enhancement of their wellbeing, and development of proactive and productive coping skills in both parents and children. After a 3-month period three parents provided feedback on their progress and use of the new tools and strategies for maintaining helpful parenting.

Keywords

parentingearly yearsfamily stresscoping
Type
Articles
Information
Children Australia , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , June 2014 , pp. 99 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bailey, E. L., van der Zwan, R., Phelan, T. W., & Brooks, A. (2012). ‘The 1–2–3 Magic Program’: Implementation outcomes of an Australian pilot evaluation with school-aged children. Child & Family Behavior Therapy, 34 (1), 53–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Band, E., & Weisz, J. (1988). How to feel better when it feels bad: Children's perspectives on coping with everyday stress. Developmental Psychology, 24, 247–253.Google Scholar
Compas, B. E. (2009). Coping, regulation and development during childhood and adolescence. In Skinner, E. & Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J. (Eds.), Coping and the development of regulation. A volume for the series, R. W. Larson & L. A. Jensen (Eds.-in-Chief), New directions in child and adolescent development. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google ScholarPubMed
Compas, B. E., Connor-Smith, J. K., Saltzman, H., Thomsen, A. H., & Wadsworth, M. E. (2001). Coping with stress during childhood and adolescence: Problems, progress, and potential in theory and research. Psychological Bulletin, 127, 87–127.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Deans, J., Frydenberg, E., & Liang, R. (2012). Building a shared language of coping: Dynamics of communication between parents and preschool children. New Zealand Research in Early Childhood Education Journal, 15, 61–83.Google Scholar
Deans, J., Frydenberg, E., & Tsurutani, H. (2010). Operationalising social and emotional coping competencies in kindergarten children. New Zealand Research in Early Childhood Education Journal, 13, 113–124.Google Scholar
Denham, S. A. (1998). Emotional development in young children. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Denham, S. A. (2006). Social-emotional competence as support for school readiness: What is it and how do we assess it? Early Education and Development, 17, 57–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denham, S. A., Bassett, H., Mincic, M., Kalb, S., Way, E., Wyatt, T., & Segal, Y. (2012). Social-emotional learning profiles of preschoolers' early school success: A person-centered approach. Learning and Individual Differences, 22 (2), 178–189.Google Scholar
Dinkmeyer, D. C., McKay, G. D., & Dinkmeyer, J. S. (1989). Parenting young children: helpful strategies based on Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (STEP) for parents of children under six. Circle Pines, Minnesota: AGS.Google Scholar
Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R. A., & Guthrie, I. (1997). Coping with stress: The roles of regulation and development. In Sandier, J. N. & Wolchik, S. A. (Eds.), Handbook of children's coping with common stressors: Linking theory, research, and intervention (pp. 41–70). New York: Plenum.Google Scholar
Erickson, P. I., & Kaplan, C. P. (2000). Maximizing qualitative responses about smoking in structured interviews. Qualitative Health Research, 10, 829–840.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frydenberg, E., & Deans, J. (2011a). Coping competencies in the early years: Identifying the strategies that preschoolers use. In Buchenwald, P. & Moore, K. (Ed.), Stress and anxiety: Application to education and health (pp. 17–26). Berlin, Germany: Logos.Google Scholar
Frydenberg, E., & Deans, J. (2011b). The early years coping cards. Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research.Google Scholar
Frydenberg, E., & Deans, J. (2012). The early years coping project: Building a shared language of coping. In Molinelli, B. & Grimaldo, V. (Eds.), Handbook of psychology of coping: New research (pp. 225–242). New York: Nova Science Publishers.Google Scholar
Frydenberg, E., Deans, J., & O'Brien, K. (2012). Developing everyday coping skills in the early years. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Frydenberg, E., & Lewis, R. (1997). Coping Scale for Adults. Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research.Google Scholar
Frydenberg, E., & Lewis, R. (2000). Teaching coping to adolescents: When and to whom? American Educational Research Journal, 37, 727–745.Google Scholar
Gordon, T. (1970). P.E.T. parent effectiveness training: the tested new way to raise responsible children. New York: New American Library/A Plume Book.Google Scholar
Hampel, P., & Petermann, F. (2005). Age and gender effects on coping in children and adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 34, 73–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, K., & Trochim, W. (2002). Concept mapping as an alternative approach for the analysis of open-ended survey responses. Organizational Research Methods, 5 (4), 307–336.Google Scholar
Lee, L., Griffiths, C., Glassop, P., & Eapen, V. (2010). The boomerangs parenting program for aboriginal parents and their young children. Australasian Psychiatry: Bulletin of Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, 18 (6), 527–533.Google Scholar
Mayr, T., & Ulich, M. (1999). Children's well-being in day care centres: An exploratory empirical study. International Journal of Early Years Education, 7 (3), 229.Google Scholar
Mayr, T., & Ulich, M. (2009). Social-emotional well-being and resilience of children in early childhood settings – PERIK: an empirically based observation scale for practitioners. Early Years: Journal of International Research and Development, 29 (1), 45–57.Google Scholar
Peltokorpi, E., Määttä, K., & Uusiautti, S. (2011). When a child's emotional coping fails. Problems of Education in the 21st Century, 3, 637–650.Google Scholar
Raver, C. (2002). Emotions matter: Making the case for the role of young children's emotional development for early school readiness. Social Policy Report of the Society for Research in Child Development, 16 (3), 1–20.Google Scholar
Rudolph, K. D., Dennig, M. D., & Weisz, J. R. (1995). Determinants and consequences of children's coping in the medical setting: Conceptualization, review, and critique. Psychological Bulletin, 118, 328–357.Google Scholar
Salmon, K., Mewton, L., Pipe, M., & McDonald, S. (2011). Asking parents to prepare children for an event: Altering parental instructions influences children's recall. Journal of Cognition and Development, 12 (1), 80–102.Google Scholar
Skinner, E. A., & Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J. (2007). The development of coping. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 119–144.Google Scholar
Trinder, M., Soltys, M., & Burke, S. (2008). A preliminary evaluation of the Confident Kids Program: A stand-alone component of the exploring together program. Australian E-Journal for the Advancement of Mental Health, 7 (1), 41.Google Scholar
Van Bergen, P., & Salmon, K. (2010). The association between parent–child reminiscing and children's emotion knowledge. New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 39, 51–56.Google Scholar
Weller, S., & Romney, A. K. (1988). Systematic data collection (vol. 10). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Winter, L., Morawska, A., & Sanders, M.R. (2012). The Knowledge of Effective Parenting Scale (KEPS): A tool for public health approaches to universal parenting programs. Journal of Primary Prevention, 33 (2), 85–97.Google Scholar