The Impact of the Parenting Wisely Program Six Months Later: The Maintenance of Family, Parenting and Adolescent Changes at Six Month Follow-up

Background/Purpose: Parenting Wisely [PW] is an interactive computer-based parent-training program that is designed to improve family communication and teach parents effective disciplinary strategies for use with adolescents. PW focuses on improving the competence and skills of parents whose adolescents are engaging in or at risk for problem behaviors, including aggression, substance abuse, and delinquency. A previous study documented the benefits of participation between pre-test and post-test across a variety of formats: (a) a parents-only 1- to 2-day workshop, (b) a parents and adolescents 5-week group, (c) a parents-only 5-week group, and (d) a self-paced online format for individual parent–adolescent dyads. The current study extends this research by examining the maintenance of positive effects on family processes, parenting confidence, and adolescent behavior six months after completion of the program.

Methods:  A sample of 365 low-income, rural parents participated in the study. The majority of the sample was female (80%) and the average age of participants was 39 years. The sample was exceptionally racially diverse: 42% African American, 39% American Indian, 9% Hispanic, 6% White, and 4% “other.” Five subscales from the McMaster Family Assessment Device (i.e., problem solving, family roles, affective involvement, behavior control, and general family functioning) were used to measure family processes. In addition, parenting measures (i.e., parenting sense of competence, parenting self-efficacy, and parent-adolescent conflict) and adolescent behavior measures (i.e., violent behavior and externalizing behavior) were collected. Individual growth models and difference-in-difference regression models were estimated to evaluate the impact of the PW program between pre-test, post-test, and 6 month follow-up.

Results: Findings showed statistically significant improvements between pretest, posttest, and 6 month follow-up for family problem solving (ES = .24), family roles (ES = .19), parenting self-efficacy (ES = .19), parent-child conflict (ES = -0.30), adolescent violent behavior (ES = -0.22), and adolescent externalizing symptoms (ES = -0.27). Results indicated few differences by treatment format.

Conclusions/Implications: The current study makes an important contribution to extant literature on PW by examining longer-term program effects on family, parenting, and adolescent outcomes. The maintenance of program effects across delivery formats has not been previously studied. Results have the potential to inform practice decisions regarding the most effective PW format based on specific outcomes of interest.