Promoting Positive Parenting and Supporting Child Development: Early Interventions Featuring Book Sharing and Play

Background Supporting children’s early social emotional development can have an enduring influence on key facets of their lives. Encouraging parents to provide positive caregiving and prioritising early relationships can promote this development, providing children with the best start in life. Parenting behaviour change and benefits for children can be supported in everyday, engaging child-parent interactions, such as book sharing and play. These enjoyable activities may offer realistic and meaningful interaction contexts that can be supported by early intervention. However, much of the experimental research linking child outcomes with parenting behaviours within book sharing and play produces mixed findings. The current research sought to explore whether these links could be better established and understood. Three studies employed various research methodologies to contribute different perspectives that aimed to inform how early intervention feasibility and targeting could be improved. Studies and methods The first study used quantitative and qualitative analysis to identify key positive parenting behaviours within high-quality book sharing interactions that might foster children’s social emotional development. The second study conducted a common elements review into the playful components of parenting skills targeted by effective early parenting interventions. Finally, the third study used secondary data from a Randomised Controlled Trial to assess how promoting positive parenting through intervention might promote child language. Results Study 1 demonstrated that parents can be supported to engage in behaviours and use skills that improve the quality of their book sharing interactions. High-quality book sharing can serve as an important context that engages child and parent in reciprocal and enjoyable interactions. This may be key in increasing the frequency with which child and parent spend time together, nurturing their relationship as a result. The second study demonstrated that play was a frequently targeted parenting skill in effective early interventions. The most frequent elements focused on supporting parents to play regularly with their child and allowing their children to take the lead during play. Play featured to support parents to develop other skills. Interestingly, play was also highlighted in moments across interventions where it was not explicitly mentioned or described. The final study found no direct effect of a sensitivity-based intervention on child language. However, there was an indirect effect through changes in parental sensitivity. This may suggest that there are other factors influencing children’s language development in combination with and beyond parental sensitivity. Conclusions Positive parenting and high-quality child-parent interactions can be promoted through interventions featuring book sharing and play. These playful activities provide natural and fun learning opportunities that fit into families’ lives. Additionally, there may be merit in distilling the targets of parenting programmes into discrete components. This could facilitate parent learning and application of intervention content outside of sessions. It could also improve understanding of the mechanisms that underlie how positive parenting can promote child development. This may inform decision making to design and deliver interventions that are feasible and effective.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Kirby, Natalie

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Ramchandani, Paul
• O'Farrelly, Christine

• child development
• mental health
• parenting
• early intervention

Licence

• https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/186dc5c0-2f32-40ea-9d1e-a1db504aaf96/download
• http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved

Language dc:language

eng

Author Identifier

0000-0002-0541-550X

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/393280