Positive parenting practices

Most early childhood home visiting models included in the HomVEE review are designed to promote positive parenting practices. Parenting education is often provided, either through didactic or experiential approaches. Some models use a structured curriculum to provide these services; others take a more flexible approach by addressing specific parenting needs identified during home visits. To a lesser extent, early childhood home visiting models integrate parenting interventions that have been found to improve specific parenting behaviors (for example, responsive interactions and positive behavioral support). In addition, home visitors may provide information to parents about child development or safety practices in the home.

Outcomes in this domain include knowledge of child development, safety practices, supportive behavior and engagement with the child, promotion of learning and child development, disciplinary practices, and general parenting practices such as bedtime routines. Outcome measures in this domain include observational measures of parent-child interactions or the home environment. For some measures, parent-child interactions are videotaped and then coded at a later time. For others, live coding is completed during an observation of the parent and child in the home environment. Many studies also use outcome measures based on parent self-reports of parenting attitudes and practices.

Categorizing attachment measures. Attachment between parent and child is a dyadic concept that does not map precisely to one single outcome domain HomVEE focuses on, as specified in statute. Therefore, HomVEE places attachment measures that examine caregiver behavior (such as sensitivity and nurturance), as well as measures that are truly dyadic (such as the Dyadic Coercive Interactions measure in the Relationship Affect Coding System), in the positive parenting practices domain. In contrast, if a measure of attachment examines child behavior, HomVEE places it in the child development and school readiness domain. Examples include attachment to the caregiver during infancy, engagement in a difficult task during toddler years, problem behaviors, and inhibitory control.

Cleanliness and order in the home environment are not eligible outcomes. These measures do not assess the quality of parenting because they do not provide information about parental behavior or how that behavior may affect their children. 

Mother’s satisfaction with father’s involvement. HomVEE categorizes measures of the mother’s satisfaction with the level of support provided by the child’s father in this domain, and generally categorizes more satisfaction as favorable. 

Parental knowledge of child’s weight. Measures of whether parents report knowing how much their child weighs are not eligible for review because such measures are not indicators of parental knowledge of the child and child development.

The effects shown in the research are grouped into four categories: (1) favorable, (2) no effect, (3) unfavorable or ambiguous, and (4) not measured. Results for models that only have low-rated research are listed as “not applicable.” For more information on these categories please read the procedures and standards handbook. Only results from manuscripts that receive a moderate or high rating are considered below. This table includes manuscripts links to more information on the model’s effectiveness, implementation, and details on findings in this domain.

Effects shown in research — Positive parenting practices domain