Social and emotional learning for parents through Conscious Discipline

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine Conscious Discipline’s (CD) Parenting Education Curriculum (CD PEC), the parenting component of CD’s research-based social and emotional learning program. CD aims to change child behavior by changing how adults understand and manage their own behaviors and emotions. Researchers explored CD PEC’s association with improved parenting skills, parent–child relationships and child behavior and emotion management. Design/methodology/approach During pre- and post-site visits, parents in four Head Start programs completed the Attentive Parenting Survey (n=25) and interviews (n=19); and 20 staff were also interviewed. Findings Parents reported that CD PEC shifted their perspectives and practices for managing children’s challenging behaviors, improved parent–child relationships and resulted in decreased child behavior problems. Research limitations/implications The study was correlational, based on self-report, and had a small sample with no comparison group. Practical implications This study supports CD PEC as a means of shifting parenting practices, relationships and child behavior by focusing on adult social-emotional skills and self-regulation. Social implications This study provides preliminary evidence that addressing the social-emotional needs of adults is a viable step to helping children improve their social skills, emotion regulation and general behavior, which have all been linked to later academic and life success. Originality/value The paper studies improvements in parents’ emotion recognition and self-regulation before disciplining their children.