Promoting Children's Development through Increased Parenting Skills: Evidence from a Culturally Enriched Parenting Group Intervention Among Chinese Immigrants in New York City

Background and Purpose:

Many immigrant parents, largely due to the disruptions in their social support network as well as the stress in their own life, rely on their traditional practices of child discipline, especially in dealing with their children’s behavior problems. Meanwhile, few interventions have been designed to help immigrant parents improve parenting skills, taking into account the role of parents’ cultural values, including their beliefs in the use of physical discipline. This study examined the impact of a parenting group intervention, an 8-week social group model that was designed and implemented among immigrant parents to provide culturally enriched and strength-based support to help parents improve their parenting skills and cope with their children’s behavioral issues.

Methods:

This study recruited Chinese immigrant parents in New York City who were concerned by their children’s behavior problems, using a convenience sampling method. Parents who voluntarily participants in the study were randomly assigned to the intervention or control group, with pre- and post-test data collected in both groups. The sample for analysis included 135 parents. The dependent variables included parenting skills measured by both positive (e.g., self-efficacy and parental warmth) and harsh parenting (e.g., psychological aggression, physical assault, and neglect), parent-child conflict, and children’s internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. OLS regressions were conducted, controlling for pre-intervention measures, child and parent demographics, and site fixed effects. A mediation analysis was further conducted to examine whether the decreases in children’s behavior problems could be attributed to increased parenting skills and decreased parent-child conflict.

Results:

Preliminary analysis showed that parents in the intervention group had significantly higher parenting skills (with effect sizes of 0.21 on self-efficacy and 0.40 on parental warmth) and lower scores on harsh parenting (with effect sizes on psychological aggression, physical assault, and neglect ranging from -0.60 to -0.22) than those in the control group. The intervention was also associated with fewer children’s externalizing behavior problems (effect size of -0.12). A mediation analysis showed that approximately 12% to 16% of the reduction in children’s externalizing behavior problems could be attributed to increased parenting skills.

Conclusions and Implications:

The findings can inform social workers and other practitioners about providing culturally enriched support and services to promote children’s positive development through increasing parents’ parenting skills in the Chinese immigrant community. This parenting group intervention was developed and implemented by clinical social workers based on their long-time work experiences with Chinese immigrants in their own communities. Implemented in a group setting, this model had low cost, especially compared to individual and family counseling, and can be easily expended to other social service agencies through the training of group leaders and facilitators.