Effects of N B P-Dads to Promote Effective Parenting of Fathers Following Divorce

Introduction. This presentation will discuss findings from a randomized effectiveness trial of a program to strengthen parenting by divorced fathers. Fathers are now receiving increasing amounts of time with their children following divorce and recent meta-analyses find that quality of father parenting has a significant impact on children’s post-divorce adjustment. Although multiple studies have found that programs strengthen post-divorce parenting of mothers, this is the first report of a randomized experimental trial of effects of a parenting program focused on divorced fathers.

The program, New Beginnings Program-Dads (NBP-Dads) is an adaptation of the New Beginnings Program, a ten session program that has been evaluated with mothers and found to have long-term effects to improve children’s adjustment. The content of NBP-Dads is the same as the program that was tested with mothers. The adaptations involved father testimonials and father video modeling of the parenting skills and conducting the program in a small group of divorced and separated fathers. The program focused on skills to increase father child positive exchanges, active listening, effective discipline, and protecting children from interparental conflict.

Methods. Fathers were recruited mainly by a DVD describing the program that was shown as part of a short (4 hour) parent education class that is mandated for all divorcing parents with children. Parents voluntarily signed up for the program in response to the DVD. Both mothers and fathers were invited, although this presentation will focus on the father subsample. Interested fathers were randomly assigned to receive the 10-session NBP-Dads (N = 201) or a two session program (N = 183) that discussed the same parenting skills but did not include role play or home practice of the skills. Assessments were completed at pre-test, post-test and 10-month follow-up using father and youth report of parenting on multiple measures as well as father, youth and teacher report of children’s behavior problems and competencies.

Results. At post-test NBP-Dads improved more than comparison group on both youth and parent reports of parenting. At 10-month follow-up NBP-Dads improved more than controls on youth report of positive parenting and father report of parental warmth for those who had poorer parenting at pre-test. Improvements on other dimensions of parenting were also found for father report for younger children, and for those with higher levels of interparental conflict at baseline. Multiple moderated program effects were found to reduce father, child and teacher report of child behavior problems and competencies at 10-months and many of these effects were mediated by improvements in parenting at post-test.