Enhancing parenting emotion socialization skills and improving child development and behavior through the emotion coaching parenting intervention “Tuning in to Kids”

Emotion coaching is considered the healthiest way for adults to react to (children’s) emotions, leading to better emotion socialization and children’s emotional and behavioral improvements. Tuning in to Kids (TIK) from Australia is considered the best-documented training for parents to learn emotion coaching skills, resulting in better parenting and fewer behavior problems in their children. The TIK training lasts over six sessions and includes role-plays, reflections, psychoeducation, and group discussions by trained and certified TIK facilitators. Because child behavioral problems are a challenge for both families and teachers, TIK seems promising in prevention and intervention. In Europe, emotion coaching is not widely evaluated yet. The aim of this study was to evaluate TIK as a webinar for the first time. TIK was delivered as a synchronous webinar in Switzerland to a non-clinical sample of N = 125 parents in an RCT. The international findings regarding improvement in parenting practices (attitudes towards emotions, reactions to difficult emotions) and child well-being and behavior were also found in the Swiss sample in the intervention group and their children: negative parenting tendencies decreased, and both internalizing and externalizing behavior problems in children improved. The parents’ commitment and satisfaction were high. The concepts of meta-emotion philosophy and emotion coaching were easy to understand but difficult to apply. Many parents saw positive changes in their families already during the TIK training, though. Cultural adaptations could be promising regarding the length of the training; more time for practice and counseling would be an asset.