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Parenting may be influenced by ethnicity; marginalization; education; and poverty. A critical but unexamined question is how these factors may interact to compromise or support parenting practices in ethnic minority communities. This analysis examined associations between mothers' stimulating parenting practices and a range of child-level (age; sex; and cognitive and socio-emotional development); household-level (indigenous ethnicity; poverty; and parental education); and community-level (economic marginalization and majority indigenous population) variables among 1893 children ages 4-18 months in poor; rural communities in Mexico. We also explored modifiers of associations between living in an indigenous community and parenting. Key findings were that stimulating parenting was negatively associated with living in an indigenous community or family self-identification as indigenous (β = -4.25; SE (Standard Error) = 0.98; β = -1.58; SE = 0.83 respectively). However; living in an indigenous community was associated with significantly more stimulating parenting among indigenous families than living in a non-indigenous community (β = 2.96; SE = 1.25). Maternal education was positively associated with stimulating parenting only in indigenous communities; and household crowding was negatively associated with stimulating parenting only in non-indigenous communities. Mothers' parenting practices were not associated with child sex; father's residential status; education; or community marginalization. Our findings demonstrate that despite greater community marginalization; living in an indigenous community is protective for stimulating parenting practices of indigenous mothers., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funding sponsors had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to examine whether access to an at-scale, group-based parenting education program ("Educación Inicial") had differential effects on parenting behaviors and child cognitive development according to mother's age at the birth of her first child, with a focus on adolescent mothers in rural Mexico., Methods: This was a secondary analysis of a cluster-randomized controlled trial (n = 728 households, n = 106 communities). We conducted intent-to-treat analyses and examined the interaction between treatment group and mother's age at first birth. The primary outcomes were parenting behaviors (Family Care Indicators) and children's cognitive development (McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities) at ages 3-5 years., Results: We found that children of mothers who began childbearing in adulthood (20-30 years) scored higher on tests of cognitive development when randomized to weekly parenting support than their counterparts in the comparison group. Whereas, the children of mothers who began childbearing in adolescence (≤16 years) did not have higher scores associated with the parenting program (difference in magnitude of associations: Verbal = -8.19; 95% CI = -15.50 to -.88; p = .03; Memory = -7.22; 95% CI = -14.31 to -.14; p = .05). The higher scores among the children of mothers who began childbearing in adulthood were only significant when Educación Inical was supported by Prospera, the conditional cash transfer program., Conclusions: Our study results suggest that the Educación Inicial parenting intervention did not adequately address the needs of women who began childbearing in adolescence. One reason may be that adolescent mothers are more socially marginalized and less able to benefit from parenting programs., (Copyright © 2017 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

We examined effects on child development of a group-based parenting support program ( Educación Inicial - EI) when combined with Mexico's conditional cash transfer (CCT) program ( Prospera , originally Oportunidades and Progresa ). This cluster-randomized trial included 204 communities (n = 1,113 children in final sample), stratified by community indigenous status, and assigned to receive either: (T0) CCT only; (T1) CCT plus availability of EI in the community; or (T2) T1 plus promotion of the EI program by the CCT program. Interviews were conducted with the mother or primary caregiver of each child at baseline (2008, children 0-18 months old), and at follow-up (2012, children 3-5 years old); the intervention began after baseline and continued for all eligible households. Cognitive development was assessed with the Extended Ages and Stages Questionnaire (baseline) and the McCarthy Scales of Children's Development (follow-up); assessors were blinded to treatment. All analyses were intention to treat. There were significant effects on child development when EI received support and promotion from the CCT program (T₂ vs. T₀: General Cognitive Index, β = 3.90; 95% CI [0.51, 7.30], Verbal Score, β = 4.28; 95% CI [0.51, 8.05], and Memory Score, β = 4.14; 95% CI [0.62, 7.66]), effects equivalent to 0.26-0.29 SD. There were no significant benefits when the programs operated independently (T₁ vs. T₀). In stratified analyses, EI showed significant effects in indigenous communities only. We found consistent results in regressions controlling for covariates, with some reductions in magnitude of differences. Our findings suggest that group-based, parenting support programs can improve child outcomes within the context of a CCT, but only when the 2 programs are integrated and mutually supportive. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).)

Background and Objective: Sixty countries worldwide have banned the use of physical punishment, yet little is known about the association of physical and nonphysical forms of child discipline with child development in a global context. The objective of this study is to examine whether physical punishment and nonphysical discipline are associated with child socioemotional functioning in a global sample of families from 62 countries and whether country-level normativeness of physical punishment and nonphysical discipline moderated those associations. Methods: Data for this study are from 215,885 families in the fourth and fifth rounds of the United Nations Children's Fund Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys. Bayesian multilevel logistic models were used to analyze the associations of physical punishment and nonphysical discipline (i.e., taking away privileges and verbal reasoning) with three different outcomes representing children's socioemotional functioning: getting along well with other children, aggression, and becoming distracted. Results: The use of physical punishment was not associated with getting along with other children, was associated with increased aggression, and was associated with increases in distraction. Taking away privileges was associated with lower levels of getting along with other children, higher levels of aggression, and higher levels of becoming distracted. Verbal reasoning (i.e., explaining why a behavior was wrong) was associated with higher levels of getting along with other children, higher levels of aggression, and higher levels of becoming distracted. Country-level normativeness moderated some of these associations but in general the direction of effects was consistent. Conclusions: Results suggest that eliminating physical punishment would benefit children across the globe and align with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which calls for all children to be free from physical violence. More attention needs to be focused on the associations of nonphysical forms of discipline with child functioning across the globe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Homes in rural Kenya lack storybooks that could support children's early literacy. • We conducted a cluster-randomized trial of combinations of books and training. • Dialogic reading training (DRT) can improve the quality of parent–child reading. • Books and DRT yield vocabulary gains for children with illiterate caregivers. • More intensive intervention variants did not markedly increase impacts. Worldwide, 250 million children under five (43%) are not meeting their developmental potential because they lack adequate nutrition and cognitive stimulation in early childhood. Several parent support programs have shown significant benefits for children's development, but the programs are often expensive and resource intensive. The objective of this study was to test several variants of a potentially scalable, cost-effective intervention to increase cognitive stimulation by parents and improve emergent literacy skills in children. The intervention was a modified dialogic reading training program that used culturally and linguistically appropriate books adapted for a low-literacy population. We used a cluster randomized controlled trial with four intervention arms and one control arm in a sample of caregivers (n ?=?357) and their 24- to 83-month-old children (n ?=?510) in rural Kenya. The first treatment group received storybooks, while the other treatment arms received storybooks paired with varying quantities of modified dialogic reading training for parents. Main effects of each arm of the trial were examined, and tests of heterogeneity were conducted to examine differential effects among children of illiterate vs. literate caregivers. Parent training paired with the provision of culturally appropriate children's books increased reading frequency and improved the quality of caregiver-child reading interactions among preschool-aged children. Treatments involving training improved storybook-specific expressive vocabulary. The children of illiterate caregivers benefited at least as much as the children of literate caregivers. For some outcomes, effects were comparable; for other outcomes, there were differentially larger effects for children of illiterate caregivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CONTEXT: Fathers contribute to their children's health starting at the beginning of life. Few parent education programs include fathers. Among those that do, there is little effort to report program effects on father outcomes. OBJECTIVE: In this systematic review, we examined father-inclusive perinatal parent education programs in the United States as they relate to a range of father outcomes. DATA SOURCES: The databases searched were PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Embase, Ovid Medline, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and PsycINFO. STUDY SELECTION: Studies were included if they included an evaluation of a parent education program and a report of father outcomes measured within 1 year of the child's birth and were conducted within the United States. DATA EXTRACTION: Of 1353 total articles, 21 met study criteria. RESULTS: The overall state of the father-inclusive perinatal parent education program literature was poor, with few interventions available to fathers. Available programs were associated with increased father involvement, coparenting relationship, partner relationship quality, father's mental health, and father's supportive behaviors. Program effects on fatherinfant interaction, parenting knowledge, and attitudes and parenting self-efficacy were inconclusive. Three programs emerged as best evidence-based interventions. LIMITATIONS: Risk of bias was high for many studies. Outcome variability, small sample size, and publication bias contributed to the weak evidence base. CONCLUSIONS: There is a need for more evidence-based interventions to support fathers. Clinicians play a key role in engaging fathers in early parent education programs and health care settings. PROSPERO registration number: CRD42017050099. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined effects on child development of a group-based parenting support program (Education Initial - El) when combined with Mexico's conditional cash transfer (CCT) program (Prospera, originally Oportunidades and Progreso). This cluster-randomized trial included 204 communities (n = 1,113 children in final sample), stratified by community indigenous status, and assigned to receive either: (T0) CCT only; (T1) CCT plus availability of El in the community; or (T2) T1 plus promotion of the El program by the CCT program. Interviews were conducted with the mother or primary caregiver of each child at baseline (2008, children 0-18 months old), and at follow-up (2012, children 3-5 years old); the intervention began after baseline and continued for all eligible households. Cognitive development was assessed with the Extended Ages and Stages Questionnaire (baseline) and the McCarthy Scales of Children's Development (follow-up); assessors were blinded to treatment. All analyses were intention to treat. There were significant effects on child development when El received support and promotion from the CCT program (T2 vs. T0: General Cognitive Index, β = 3.90; 95% Cl [0.51, 7.30], Verbal Score, β = 4.28; 95% Cl [0.51, 8.05], and Memory Score, β = 4.14; 95% Cl [0.62, 7.66]), effects equivalent to 0.26-0.29 SD. There were no significant benefits when the programs operated independently (T1 vs. T0). In stratified analyses, El showed significant effects in indigenous communities only. We found consistent results in regressions controlling for covariates, with some reductions in magnitude of differences. Our findings suggest that group-based, parenting support programs can improve child outcomes within the context of a CCT, but only when the 2 programs are integrated and mutually supportive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether fathers' parental warmth and parenting stress were associated with behavior problems when children were approximately 36-months of age, beyond the influence of maternal behaviors. Study participants were 3342 low-income fathers and mothers who participated in the Building Strong Families (BSF) study. Cross-sectional regression analyses indicated that for unmarried nonresidential families, fathers' parental warmth and parenting stress were associated with child internalizing behavior problems; and fathers' parenting stress only was marginally associated with child externalizing behavior problems. For consistently cohabiting residential fathers, only fathers' parenting stress was marginally associated with child internalizing behavior problems. No associations of fathers' parental warmth and parenting stress on either internalizing or externalizing behavior problems were observed in married families. Overall, study results suggest that fathers' parental warmth and parenting stress may have a modest positive association on the development of child internalizing behavior problems particularly in vulnerable families (i.e., families in which fathers were nonresidential). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]