Peace at Home: Bringing Parent Education Online

Dana Asby, CEI Intern

Many parents, especially first time parents, have low levels of self-efficacy in parenting. In fact, 79% of parents want more information about child-rearing (Zepeda, Varela, and Morales, 2004). Parent education programs typically involve a parent educator conducting a series of classes or workshops with new parents or parents experiencing certain contexts that can be risk-factors to responsive parenting. They have generally been proven to be effective in improving the parental skills toolbox, especially parental responsiveness (Votruba-Drzal and Dearing, 2017). Many early childhood programs offer parent education programs; however, the demands on a parent’s time and interest are often too great to retain parents for multiple sessions. One solution to this problem is to offer parent education workshops online at times that are convenient for parents. There is evidence that using technology in parent education may be more cost-effect and reach more parents (Magnuson & Schindler, 2016).