Enhancing Positive Parenting in Military Families with Young Children

描述（由申请人提供）：在美国，近200万儿童生活在军人家庭；近40%的儿童年龄在6岁以下。部署对服役人员的影响，加上未部署的父母的痛苦和情绪症状，使军人家庭处于特别危险的境地，这在国民警卫队和预备役的家庭中最为明显。父母的部署与高水平的养育压力、父母的精神症状、儿童的抑郁和行为问题有关。统一也带来挑战，包括重建关系、角色和家庭惯例的规范性任务。该项目旨在解决部署后有幼儿（2至5岁）的军人家庭的需求，特别关注警卫和预备役。“坚强家庭”是一项针对军人、他们的伴侣和孩子的简短的、以团体为基础的育儿干预，重点是通过包括五个核心支柱的干预来加强积极的育儿：1)父母教育，2)社会支持，3)支持亲子互动，4)将家庭与资源联系起来，5)提高减轻压力和自我照顾技能。项目方法包括一项随机对照试验（N=160），将接受“坚强家庭”治疗的父母（N= 80）与接受基于网络信息资源的注意力控制条件的父母（N= 80）进行比较。我们的核心假设是，“坚强家庭”的参与者将会证明积极的养育方式得到加强，心理健康症状也会减少。前后评估将采用多种方法来评估父母的养育方式，包括自我报告的养育压力，对养育方式的观察，以及评估父母的归因和对孩子的陈述的访谈。前后评估也将确定

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Across the United States nearly 2 million children are living in military households; almost 40% are under the age of 6. The impact of deployment on the service member, coupled with distress and emotional symptoms in the nondeployed parent, places military families at particular risk, and this is most pronounced for families in the Nationl Guard and Reserves. Parental deployment has been linked to high levels of parenting stress, parent psychiatric symptoms, and depression and behavior problems in children. Reunification also poses challenges, including the normative tasks of reestablishing relationships, roles and family routines. This project aims to address the needs of military families with young children (2- to 5-years-old) following a deployment, with a particular focus on the Guard and Reserves. STRoNG Families is a brief, group-based parenting intervention for service members, their partners and children, and focuses on enhancing positive parenting through an intervention that incorporates five core pillars: 1) parent education, 2) social support, 3) supporting parent-child interactions, 4) connecting families to resources, and 5) improving stress reduction and self-care skills. Project methods involve a randomized controlled trial (N=160) comparing parents in the STRoNG Families treatment (n=80) to an attentional control condition that involves access to web-based informational resources (n=80). Our core hypotheses are that STRoNG Families participants will evidence enhanced positive parenting and reductions in mental health symptoms. Pre-post assessments will employ a multi-method approach to assess parenting, including self-reported parenting stress, observations of parenting, and interviews to assess parent attributions and representations of their children. Pre- post assessments will also identify changes in parent depression and posttraumatic stress, while exploratory analyses will examine the impact of the intervention on parent- reported child behavior problems. This project will lay the foundation for a subsequent RCT to longitudinally evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention for improving child outcomes. Access to evidence- based parenting support can ultimately improve outcomes for this vulnerable population. This proposal is responsive to the urgent need for acceptable, effective interventions specifically tailored for the experiences of military families with young children.