Identify an action step in at least three *different* categories of the Ecological Systems Theory (microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem) Include a last paragraph (aka ‘a con

Being a parent can be a very rewarding and joyful experience. But being a parent can also have its share of stress. Parenting stress is caused by the pressures (stressors) that are placed on parents personally and in relation to their child: • typical events and life changes (e.g., moving

to a new city or not being able to soothe a crying baby)

• unexpected events (e.g., losing a job or discovering your child has a medical problem)

• individual factors (e.g., substance abuse or traumatic experiences)

• social factors (e.g., relationship problems or feelings of loneliness and isolation)

• community, societal or environmental conditions (e.g., persistent poverty, racism or a natural disaster)

Numerous researchers have concluded that how parents respond to stressors is much more important than the stressor itself in determining the outcomes for themselves and their children. Parents are more likely to achieve healthy, favorable outcomes if they are resilient. Resilience is the process of managing stress and functioning well even when faced with challenges, adversity and trauma. Some stressors parents face can be managed easily so that problems get resolved; for example, calling a relative or friend to pick-up a child from school when a parent is delayed. But some stressors cannot be easily resolved. For example, parents cannot “fix” their child’s developmental disability, erase the abuse they suffered as a child or be able to move out of a crime-plagued neighborhood. Rather, parents are resilient when they are able to call forth their inner strength to proactively meet personal challenges and those in relation to their child, manage adversities, heal the effects of trauma and thrive given the unique characteristics and circumstances of their family. Demonstrating resilience increases parents’ self-efficacy because they are able to see

evidence of both their ability to face challenges competently and to make wise choices about addressing challenges. Furthermore, parental resilience has a positive effect on the parent, the child and the parent-child relationship. By managing stressors, parents feel better and can provide more nurturing attention to their child, which enables their child to form a secure emotional attachment. Receiving nurturing attention and developing a secure emotional attachment with parents, in turn, fosters the development of resilience in children when they experience stress.

Sometimes the pressures parents face are so overwhelming that their ability to manage stress is severely compromised. This is the case with parents who grew up in environments that create toxic stress. That is, as children, they experienced strong, frequent and prolonged adversity without the buffering protection of nurturing adult support. As a result, these parents may display symptoms of depression, anxiety, or other clinical disorders that inhibit their ability to respond consistently, warmly and sensitively to their child’s needs. For example, depressive symptoms in either mothers or fathers are found to disrupt healthy parenting practices so that the child of a depressed parent is at increased risk of poor attachments, maltreatment and poor physical, neurological, social-emotional, behavioral and cognitive outcomes. However, numerous research studies show parents can be helped to manage clinical symptoms and reactions to their own histories of poor attachments and trauma, to protect children from adversity and trauma as best they can and to provide more nurturing care that promotes secure emotional attachment and healthy development in their children.

All parents experience stress from time-to- time. Thus, parental resilience is a process that all parents need in order effectively manage stressful situations and help ensure they and their families are on a trajectory of healthy, positive outcomes.

Parental resilience

Protective & Promotive Factors

1oF 5

PARENTAL RESILIENCE: ACTION SHEET

Your role

Your daily interactions with parents can help them to build their resilience and their belief in themselves as parents and capable decision-makers. You can:

• Projecting a positive and strengths-based approach to all families • Support parents as key decision-makers for their families and provide opportunities for decision-

making that affects the program or community • Encourage parents to take care of themselves, particularly during stressful times • Normalize the fact that parenting is stressful and help the parent plan proactively about how to

respond to stressful parenting situations • Validate and support good decisions

Questions to ask

• Where do you draw your strength? • How does this help you in parenting? • What are your dreams for yourself and family? • What kind of worries and frustrations do you deal with during the day? How do you solve them? • How are you able to meet your children's needs when you are stressed? • How does your spouse, partner, or closest friend support you? When you are under stress, what

is most helpful? • What do you do to take care of yourself when you are stressed?

What to look for

• Problem solving skills • Ability to cope with stress • Self-care strategies • Help-seeking behavior • Receiving mental health or substance abuse services if needed • Not allowing stress to impact parenting

Activities to do with parents

• Ask the parent to write down their self-care strategies and ensure that they are taking time for self-care each day.

• Ask the parent to identify situations they find stressful and make a plan in advance for how they will keep themselves calm and centered in these circumstances.

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People need people. Parents need people who care about them and their children, who can be good listeners, who they can turn to for well-informed advice and who they can call on for help in solving problems. Thus, the availability and quality of social connections are important considerations in the lives of parents. Parents’ constructive and supportive social connections—that is, relationships with family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers, community members and service providers— are valuable resources who provide: • emotional support (e.g., affirming

parenting skills or being empathic and non- judgmental)

• informational support (e.g., providing parenting guidance or recommending a pediatric dentist)

• instrumental support (e.g., providing transportation, financial assistance or links to jobs)

• spiritual support (e.g., providing hope and encouragement)

When parents have a sense of connectedness they believe they have people who care about them as individuals and as parents; they feel secure and confident that they have others with whom they can share the joy, pain and uncertainties that come with the parenting role; they seek timely assistance from people they have learned to count on when faced with challenges; and they feel empowered to “give back” through satisfying, mutually beneficial relationships. Several research studies have demonstrated that—for both mothers and fathers—high levels of emotional, informational, instrumental or spiritual support is associated with positive parental mood; positive perceptions of and responsiveness to one’s children; parental satisfaction, well-being and sense of competence; and lower levels of anger, anxiety and depression. Conversely, inadequate, conflicting or dissatisfying social connections can be the source of parental stress, rather than a buffer. For example, maternal and paternal grandparents may be very willing sources of informational and instrumental support to new parents, but their advice and manner of caregiving may be at odds

with the new parents’ beliefs and preferences. At the extreme end of the continuum of poor social connections are social isolation (i.e., the lack of available and quality relationships) and loneliness (i.e., feelings of disconnectedness from others). Social isolation is a risk factor consistently associated with disengaged parenting, maternal depression and increased likelihood of child maltreatment. Similarly, loneliness may be a major stressor that inhibits parents’ ability to provide consistent, nurturing, responsive care to their children. It may seem that increasing the number of people who could provide constructive social support to parents would be the “cure” for social isolation and loneliness. Providing opportunities for parents to create and strengthen sustainable, positive social connections is necessary but alone is not sufficient. Parents can feel lonely and isolated even when surrounded by others if relationships lack emotional depth and genuine acceptance. Thus, parents need opportunities to forge positive social connections with at least one other person that engender emotional, informational, instrumental or spiritual support so that meaningful interactions may occur in a context of mutual trust and respect. Constructive and supportive social connections help buffer parents from stressors and support nurturing parenting behaviors that promote secure attachments in young children. Therefore, parents’ high quality social connections are beneficial to both the adults and the children.

social connections

Protective & Promotive Factors

2 oF 5

SOCIAL CONNECTIONS: ACTION SHEET Your role

You can help parents to think critically about their social network and how they could utilize it more effectively, as well as the skills and tools they need to expand it. The following strategies may assist you in engaging families in developing social connections:

• Model good relational behavior and use your interactions with families as an opportunity to help parents develop stronger relational skills

• When engaging the family’s broader network in teaming or other supports, be sensitive to the quality of existing relationships and help the family identify supporters in their network who will contribute positively

• Invite parents to events where they can get to know each other – with or without their kids – and reach out especially to those parents that may be socially isolated

• If there are specific issues that serve as barriers for the family in developing healthy social connections such as anxiety or depression, encourage the family to address them

Questions to ask

• Do you have friends or family members that help you out once in a while? • Are you a member of any groups or organizations? • Who can you call for advice or just to talk? How often do you see them? • What kind of social support do you need? • Do you find it easy or challenging to make friends? If it is challenging, what specific things

represent a barrier for you? • What helps you feel connected?

What to look for

• Does the parent have supportive relationships with one or more persons (friends, family, neighbors, community, faith- based organizations, etc.)?

• Can the parent turn to their social network for help in times of need (for instance, when they need help with transportation, childcare or other resources)?

• Is the parent willing and able to accept assistance from others? • Does the parent have positive relationships with other parents of same-age kids? • Does the parent have skills for establishing and maintaining social relationships? • Does the parent provide reciprocal social support to peers?

Activities to do with parents

• Work with the parent to develop an EcoMap showing the people and institutions that are sources of support and/or stress in his or her life.

• Role play with the parent to help them practice skills in approaching another parent to develop a friendship. Have the parent choose a realistic scenario such as starting a conversation at a school event, on the playground or at a place of worship.

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No parent knows everything about children or is a “perfect parent.” An understanding of parenting strategies and child development helps parents understand what to expect and how to provide what children need during each developmental phase. All parents, and those who work with children, can benefit from increasing their knowledge and understanding of child development, including: • physical, cognitive, language, social and

emotional development • signs indicating a child may have a

developmental delay and needs special help • cultural factors that influence parenting

practices and the perception of children • factors that promote or inhibit healthy child

outcomes • discipline and how to positively impact child

behavior Gaining more knowledge about child development and developing greater skills in parenting are particularly important given the recent advances in the fields of neuroscience, pediatrics and developmental psychology. Scientists in these fields have provided much evidence of the critical importance of early childhood as the period in which the foundation for intellectual, social, emotional and moral development is established. Furthermore, numerous research studies show this foundation is determined by the nature of the young child’s environments and experiences that shape early brain development. Developing brains need proper nutrition, regularly scheduled periods of sleep, physical activity and a variety of stimulating experiences. Developing brains also need attuned, emotionally available parents and other primary caregivers who recognize and consistently respond to the needs of young children, and interact with them in an affectionate, sensitive and nurturing manner. Such care gives rise to the development of a secure attachment between the child and the adult. Young children with secure attachments develop a sense of trust, feel safe, gain self-confidence and are able to explore their environments because they feel they have a secure base.

Numerous longitudinal studies have demonstrated that parental behaviors that lead to early secure attachments—and which remain warm and sensitive as children grow older—lay the foundation for social-emotional, cognitive and moral competencies across developmental periods. For example, when a young child solicits interaction through babbling or facial expressions and a parent responds in a similar manner, this type of parent-child interaction helps to create neural connections that build later social-emotional and cognitive skills. In addition, advances in brain research have shown that parental behaviors that forge secure emotional attachments help young children learn to manage stress. Secure attachments can offset some of the damage experienced by highly stressed young children as a result of trauma (e.g., maltreatment or exposure to violence.) In contrast, parental care that is inconsistent, unresponsive, detached, hostile or rejecting gives rise to insecure attachments. Young children who experience insecure attachments display fear, distrust, anxiety or distress and are at risk for long-term adverse effects on brain development including developmental delays, cognitive impairments, conduct problems, psychopathology and relationship challenges. For example, young children who have limited adult language stimulation and opportunities to explore may not fully develop the neural pathways that support learning. What parents do and how they treat children is often a reflection of the way they were parented. Acquiring new knowledge about parenting and child development enables parents to critically evaluate the impact of their experiences on their own development and their current parenting practices, and to consider that there may be more effective ways of guiding and responding to their children. Furthermore, understanding the mounting evidence about the nature and importance of early brain development enables both parents and those who work with children to know what young children need most in order to thrive: nurturing, responsive, reliable and trusting relationships; regular, predictable and consistent routines; interactive language experiences; a physically and emotionally safe environment; and opportunities to explore and to learn by doing.

Protective & Promotive Factors

3 oF 5

Knowledge of Parenting and Child develoPment

KNOWLEDGE OF PARENTING AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT: ACTION SHEET Your role

Each contact you have with the family provides an important opportunity to link them to parenting resources, provide child development information and model and validate effective caregiving. You can:

• Connect parents to parenting education classes or home visiting as appropriate for their situation • Model appropriate expectations for the child • Engage parents in dialogue when their expectations are not in line with the child’s developmental phase • Underline the importance of nurturing care to help the parent in valuing the importance of their own role • Provide “just in time” parenting education: crucial information a parent needs at the time when parenting issues

arise • Help the parent identify a series of trusted informants that they can turn to when they need parenting information

Questions to ask

• What does your child do best and what do you like about your child? • What do you like about parenting? What do you find challenging about parenting? • How have you learned about parenting skills? • How do you continue to learn about your child’s development? • What has helped you learn about yourself as a parent? • Are there things that worry you about your child’s development or behavior? • Have other people expressed concern about your child?

What to look for

• Does the parent understand and encourage healthy development? • Is the parent able to respond and manage their child's behavior? • Does the parent understand and demonstrate age-appropriate parenting skills in their expectations, discipline,

communication, protection and supervision of their child? • Does the child respond positively to the caregivers’ approaches? • Does the parent understand and value their parenting role? • Does the parent have a reliable source for parenting information when issues come up? • Does the parent know how to encourage social-emotional development and apply a range of age-appropriate

disciplinary strategies? • Is the parent involved in their child’s school, preschool or other activities? • Does the parent understand the child’s specific needs (especially if the child has special developmental or

behavioral needs)? Activities to do with parents

• Ask the parent what their hopes and dreams are for their child(ren). Discuss any worries the parent has about ensuring those hopes and dreams are met. Then discuss what the parent is doing today (or wants to do) to help achieve those hopes and dreams.

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All parents need help sometimes—help with the day-to-day care of children, help in figuring out how to soothe a colicky baby, help getting to the emergency room when a bad accident happens, help in managing one’s own temper when fatigued or upset. When parents are faced with very trying conditions such as losing a job, home foreclosure, substance abuse, not being able to feed their family or trauma, they need access to concrete support and services that address their needs and help to minimize the stress caused by very difficult challenges and adversity. Assisting parents to identify, find and receive concrete support in times of need helps to ensure they and their family receive the basic necessities everyone deserves in order to grow (e.g., healthy food, a safe environment), as well as specialized medical, mental health, social, educational or legal services. When parents are faced with overwhelmingly stressful conditions they need to seek help, but for some parents asking for help is not an easy thing to do. It may be embarrassing for some parents because it feels like an admission of incompetence; that they don’t know how to solve their own problems or take care of their family. Other parents may not seek help because they don’t know where to go for help, or the services needed have a stigma associated with them such as mental health clinics and domestic violence or homeless shelters. Thus, parents need experiences that enable them to understand their rights in accessing services, gain knowledge of relevant services and learn how to navigate through service systems. Family and child-serving programs must clearly communicate to parents that seeking help is not an indicator of weakness or failure as a parent. On the contrary, seeking help is a step toward improving one’s circumstances and learning to better manage stress and function well—even when faced with challenges, adversity, and trauma. When parents ask for help, it is a step toward building resilience.

When parents seek help, it should be provided in a manner that does not increase stress. Services should be coordinated, respectful, caring and strengths-based. Strengths-based practice is grounded in the beliefs that: • It is essential to forge a trusting relationship

between parents and service providers and among service providers working with the same families

• Regardless of the number or level of adverse conditions parents are experiencing, they have assets within and around them, their family and their community that can be called upon to help mitigate the impact of stressful conditions and to create needed change

• Parents have unrealized resources and competencies that must be identified, mobilized and appreciated

• Parents must be active participants in the change process and not passive recipients of services

• Parents must first be guided through, and subsequently learn how to navigate, the complex web of health care and social service systems

• In addition to addressing each parent’s individual difficulties, strengths-based practitioners must understand—and work to change—the structural inequities and conditions that contribute to these difficulties

A strengths-based approach helps parents feel valued because they are acknowledged as knowledgeable and competent. They develop a sense of self-confidence and self-efficacy because they have opportunities to build their skills, experience success and provide help to others. Thus, access to concrete support in times of need must be accompanied by a quality of service coordination and delivery that is designed to preserve parents’ dignity and to promote their and their family’s healthy development, resilience and ability to advocate for and receive needed services and resources.

Protective & Promotive Factors

4 oF 5

ConCrete Support in timeS of need

CONCRETE SUPPORT IN TIMES OF NEED: ACTION SHEET Your role

As a professional working with families, your role is not just to provide referrals to needed services, but to identify any barriers the families may have in accessing those services. Helping families overcome those barriers is crucial to ensuring that their concrete needs are met. Such help may entail:

• Encouraging help seeking behavior • Working with the family to understand their past experience with service systems and any stigma

they attach to certain services • Helping the family to navigate complex systems by explaining eligibility requirements, filling out

forms or making a warm handoff to an individual who can help them negotiate getting access to the services they need

• Helping the parent understand their role as an advocate for themselves and their child • Giving parents opportunities to help meet concrete needs of other families in the program or the

community, to encourage reciprocity Questions to ask when a family is in need

• What do you need to _________ (stay in your house, keep your job, pay your heating bill etc.)? • What have you done to handle the problem? Has this worked? • Are there community groups or local services that you have worked with in the past? What has

been your experience accessing their services? • Are there specific barriers that have made it difficult for you to access services in the past? • How does dealing with these issues impact the way you parent?

What to look for

• Is the parent open to accessing and utilizing services? • Has the parent had positive experiences with services in the past? • Does the parent have specific barriers (literacy, lack of transportation, etc.) that will make it

difficult to access services? • Are there personal behavioral traits (e.g., punctuality, willingness to share personal information,

etc.) that the parent could address to more effectively utilize services? • Does the parent try to buffer the child from the stress caused by the family’s concrete needs?

Activities to do with parents

• Ask the parent to identify one concrete need that, if met, would lighten his or her burden. Come up with a list of at least three possible avenues to get that need met (e.g., agencies to approach, people to ask for help, cutting back on other expenses).

• Talk to the parent about what their family’s socioeconomic status was in their childhood and what effect that had on them. Discuss things their parents did or did not do to buffer them from the stress of poverty, to teach them the value of money or to make sure their needs were met.

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Early childhood is a period of both great opportunity and vulnerability. Early childhood experiences set the stage for later health, well- being and learning. In the past, most of the focus was on building young children’s academic skills in an effort to ensure they were prepared for school. However, in recent years a growing body of research has demonstrated the strong link between young children’s social-emotional competence and their cognitive development, language skills, mental health and school success. The dimensions of social-emotional competence in early childhood include: • self-esteem – good feelings about oneself • self-confidence – being open to new

challenges and willing to explore new environments

• self-efficacy – believing that one is capable of performing an action

• self-regulation/self-control – following rules, controlling impulses, acting appropriately based on the context

• personal agency – planning and carrying out purposeful actions

• executive functioning – staying focused on a task and

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