Background: Preschoolers’ emotional development typically hinges on the family emotional climate and their interactions with caregivers. Tuning in to Kids (TIK) is a parenting program that focuses on emotion coaching and is evidenced to be effective in Western populations. The program encourages parents to reexamine their own parenting beliefs and to develop supportive and emotionally responsive parenting skills. This study used a randomized controlled trial to examine the intervention effects of TIK on Chinese parents of low to middle socioeconomic status in Hong Kong. Method: One hundred four parents (99 mothers and 5 fathers; mean age in years = 37.92) of preschoolers aged 3–6 years were randomly assigned to the experimental (n = 54) or waitlist control group (n = 50). Parent and child outcomes were assessed at baseline (Time 1), immediately after the 6-week intervention (Time 2), and 6 weeks postintervention (Time 3), using the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire, Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale, Parenting Stress Index-Short Form, and Emotion Regulation Checklist. Results: The experimental group reported significant reductions in punitive parenting and parenting stress at Time 2, and these effects were maintained at Time 3. Delayed improvements in parents’ use of expressive encouragement and children’s emotion lability/negativity were observed at Time 3 in the experimental group. The immediate intervention effects were replicated in the waitlist control group at Time 3 after they attended the training. Conclusion: The current study added to the scant repertoire of research on emotion coaching parenting interventions among non-Western parents, and represented probably one of the few randomized controlled trials of the TIK program conducted in Asian countries. Our results corroborated the findings of prior studies of TIK and provided preliminary support for its effectiveness across different cultural contexts.
Dr. Kathy Shum graduated from the University of Toronto with an Honours Bachelor Degree in Human Biology and Master Degree in Physiology. She pursued a career in education after obtaining her Postgraduate Certificate in Education from the University of Hong Kong. After several years of teaching at a secondary school, she started anew in the field of psychology and completed her doctoral degree in Educational Psychology at the University of Hong Kong. She is currently the Director of the Master of Social Sciences Programme in Educational Psychology at the University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include parenting, early childhood intervention, socioemotional development, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
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