Evaluating the Effect of a Trauma-Informed Parenting Program for Chinese Parents Engaging in Child Emotional Abuse: A Pilot Study

Background: Emotional abuse has increasingly gained public attention due to its detrimental impact on child and adolescent development, with long-term effects that may extend into adulthood. Parents are often the primary perpetrators of emotional abuse during a child’s developmental years. To address this issue, trauma-informed approaches offer a valuable perspective by raising parental understanding and awareness of the harmful consequences of emotional abuse as a traumatic experience that can lead to adverse outcomes for children. Trauma-informed parenting (TIP) programs have been developed in the West to support caregivers across various settings, enhance parenting practices, and improve children’s psychosocial outcomes. However, there is a paucity of research on developing culturally adapted TIP interventions in non-Western contexts.

This study aims to evaluate the effects of a trauma-informed parenting program for Chinese parents in reducing parental emotional abuse, enhancing trauma-related knowledge, mindfulness, and parenting practices, as well as reducing parenting stress, parent-child conflict, and children’s psychosocial symptoms. The overarching goal is to identify culturally effective strategies for reducing emotional abuse and improving the overall home environment for Chinese children.

Methods: A pilot single-group pretest-posttest study was conducted from January to March 2025 in Guangdong Province, China. The participants were parents who had previously engaged in emotional abuse toward their children. Inclusion criteria were: (1) having a history of or currently engaging in emotional abuse; (2) being the biological parent of a child under the age of 12; and (3) the child exhibiting psychological or behavioral symptoms. The intervention lasted seven weeks and included one individual counseling session and six group sessions, totaling 14 hours. A total of nine participants were included in the final analysis to assess the effects of trauma-informed parenting.

Findings: The study found that after the intervention, parent participants showed significant improvements in trauma-informed knowledge, parenting beliefs, and mindfulness levels, while parenting stress significantly decreased. However, changes in the parent-child relationship and children's positive behaviors were not statistically significant. Follow-up interviews revealed that the TIP intervention enhanced parenting skills, trauma-related attitudes, and parents’ willingness to empathize with and support their children. Parents also exhibited improved emotional awareness and regulation, resulting in a reduction of emotionally abusive behaviors. Consequently, children’s emotional and behavioral symptoms showed noticeable improvement.

Discussion: This study revealed the effect of a modified trauma-informed parenting intervention and confirmed its feasibility in the Chinese context, as well as its potential to prevent and reduce parental emotional abuse. The findings underscore the crucial role of parents’ trauma-related knowledge and emotional awareness in their parenting practices. Moreover, behavioral changes in parents contribute to improvements in their children’s emotional and behavioral development. This study inspires social workers to implement TIP programs to support families affected by trauma and to prevent emotional abuse.