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中;近40%的儿童年龄在6岁以下。部署对军人的影响，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，这对国民警卫队和预备役的家庭来说最为明显。父母的部署与高水平的养育压力，父母精神症状，抑郁症和儿童行为问题有关。团聚也带来挑战，包括重新建立关系、角色和家庭惯例的规范性任务。该项目旨在满足部署后有幼儿（2至5岁）的军人家庭的需求，特别侧重于警卫和预备役。STRoNG家庭是一个简短的，以小组为基础的育儿干预服务成员，他们的合作伙伴和孩子，并侧重于通过干预措施，包括五个核心支柱加强积极的育儿：1）家长教育，2）社会支持，3）支持亲子互动，4）连接家庭资源，5）提高减压和自我照顾技能。 项目方法涉及一项随机对照试验（N=160），将STRoNG家庭治疗（n=80）中的父母与涉及访问基于网络的信息资源（n=80）的注意力控制条件进行比较。我们的核心假设是，STRoNG家庭的参与者将证明积极的养育方式和心理健康症状的减少。事前事后评估将采用多种方法来评估养育子女的情况，包括自我报告的养育压力、对养育子女情况的观察，以及评估父母对其子女的归因和表现的访谈。事前事后评估还将确定 父母抑郁和创伤后压力的变化，而探索性分析将检查干预对父母报告的儿童行为问题的影响。 该项目将为后续RCT奠定基础，以纵向评估干预措施改善儿童结局的有效性。获得基于证据的育儿支持最终可以改善这一弱势群体的结果。这项建议是为了满足迫切需要，以便采取可接受的、有效的干预措施，专门针对有年幼子女的军人家庭的经历。

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.