Educationally Disadvantaged Older Youth: Parent-child Closeness

Three programs, New Chance, the Nurse Home Visitation Program, and Teenage Parent Demonstration, work directly to improve parenting skills, and studies of two of them measure parenting skill outcomes. At the 18-month follow-up, New Chance participants reported more emotional support and less dislike of parenting roles than youths in the control group (NC1). At the 42-month follow-up, however, those differences had faded; moreover, participants reported more parenting stress and more aggravation with their children (NC1). Participants in the Nurse Home Visitation Program had somewhat higher scores on tests of mother-infant interaction than control parents did (NHV4). More research is needed to determine whether programs are meeting the goal of improving parenting skills.