Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community

ISSN: 1085-2352 (Print) 1540-7330 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wpic20

Positive parenting as responsible care: Risks,

protective factors, and intervention evaluation

Silvia Donato & Anna Bertoni

To cite this article: Silvia Donato & Anna Bertoni (2017) Positive parenting as responsible care:
Risks, protective factors, and intervention evaluation, Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the
Community, 45:3, 151-155, DOI: 10.1080/10852352.2016.1198120

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10852352.2016.1198120

Published online: 22 Jun 2017.

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JOURNAL OF PREVENTION & INTERVENTION IN THE COMMUNITY
2017, VOL. 45, NO. 3, 151–155
https://doi.org/10.1080/10852352.2016.1198120

INTRODUCTION none defined

Positive parenting as responsible care: Risks, protective

factors, and intervention evaluation
Silvia Donato and Anna Bertoni
Family Studies and Research University Centre, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano, Italy

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
In this themed issue of the Journal of Prevention & Intervention in Intervention evaluation;
the Community, the first four contributions provide knowledge parenting; parenting
on factors that can support or hinder positive parenting programs; protective factors;
throughout children’s lives. In particular, the first article risk factors
examined the spillover of work stressors on parenting behaviors
and the role of spousal support as a moderator of stress
spillover. The second contribution examines the association
between parents’ promotion of volitional functioning and
adopted children’s sense of strength of family bonds and
belonging to the adoptive family. The third article analyzes the
negative impact of intrusive parenting on young adult
children’s romantic relationship quality and couple identity,
and the fourth article examines parents’ autonomous and
controlled motivations to transmit values to their adolescent
children and their associations with parents’ socialization goals.
Finally, the last two articles present the contents and evaluation
of two parenting programs. The fifth article illustrates the
development, content, and efficacy of an attachment-based
intervention for parenting: the Video-feedback Intervention to
promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD);
the sixth article presents a qualitative evaluation of a group-
based program focused on promoting parents’ identity together
with parenting skills: The Groups for Family Enrichment_Parent
version (GFE_P).

Parenting is essential for children’s development throughout their lives, from

infancy to adulthood (Bornstein, 2002). People define themselves, in adult-
hood as well, by comparison with their own parents, even when forming a
new couple and family (Donato, Iafrate, & Barni, 2013; Donato, Iafrate,
Bradbury, & Scabini, 2012; Iafrate, Donato, & Bertoni, 2013) as well as in
non-normative life transitions (Bertoni et al., 2016; Ferrari, Ranieri, Barni,
& Rosnati, 2015). Different psychological theories have speculated on the
main dimensions of parenting, trying to capture its “essence,” and emphasized
the role of parents’ sensitive care of children, the affective, secure relationship
between parents and children; but also highlighted is the need for integrating
such an affective dimension with responsibility and dedication. Positive
parenting as “responsible care” summarizes this integration of affective and
CONTACT Silvia Donato silvia.donato@unicatt.it Family Studies and Research University Centre - Università
Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Largo A. Gemelli, 1-20123 Milano, Italy.
© 2017 Taylor & Francis
152 S. DONATO AND A. BERTONI

ethical dimensions of parenting (Cigoli & Scabini, 2006) as well as family

relationships’ generative goals (Bertoni, Parise, & Iafrate, 2012). Positive
parenting, however, is a challenge and parents may have difficulties, at the
personal, familial, or social level, in enacting positive parenting behaviors.
Positive parenting, in fact, may be challenged by parents’ own vulnerabil-
ities (e.g., attachment insecurity; depression; lack of understanding of
children’s needs, etc.), by the child’s and the family’s characteristics (e.g.,
the child’s difficult temperament, developmental problems, illnesses, the
family’s structure, etc.), as well as by contextual factors and stressful circum-
stances (e.g., work stress; normative and nonnormative transitions, etc.). On
the other hand, despite the challenges parents encounter in enacting their
role, resources can be found at the same levels as described above: parents’
strengths (e.g., attachment security; relational skills; dedication and sensitivity
to children’s needs, etc.), the children’s and family’s characteristics (e.g., the
child’s resilience; the family’s economic resources; support from extended
family, etc.), as well as a positive context of living (e.g., work satisfaction;
social network resources, etc.). These can all play a protective role for the par-
ent-child relationship and for children’s outcomes.
In this themed issue of the Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the
Community, the reader will find examples of both risks and resources
connected to parenting throughout children’s development (childhood,
adolescence, and young adulthood). In particular, the first article by Malinen
and colleagues examines the spillover of work stressors on parenting beha-
viors with young children and the role of spousal support as a moderator
of stress spillover. The second contribution, by Ranieri and colleagues, exam-
ines the association between parents’ promotion of volitional functioning and
adolescent adopted children’s sense of strength of family bonds and belonging
to the adoptive family. The third article, by Parise and colleagues, analyzes the
negative impact of intrusive parenting on young adult children’s romantic
relationship quality and couple identity, and the fourth article, by Barni
and colleagues, examines parents’ autonomous and controlled motivations
to transmit values to their adolescent children and their associations with
parents’ socialization goals.
These first four articles included in the themed issue all present risks and
resources related to parenting: in the contribution by Malinen and colleagues,
for example, stressful interpersonal interactions at the workplace negatively
impacted parents’ behaviors with their young children at home. Then, in
Parise and colleagues’ article, intrusiveness in the parent-child relationship
was found to be linked to diminished couple identity and relationship quality
of young adult children during the transition to marriage. The contribution
by Ranieri and colleagues, however, highlighted how parents’ support of
children’s volitional functioning is an important resource, positively associa-
ted to their adopted children’s sense of belonging to their family, during
 JOURNAL OF PREVENTION & INTERVENTION IN THE COMMUNITY 153

adoptees’ adolescence. Yet, the article presented by Barni and colleagues

examines how parents’ autonomous motivations in the transmission of values
to their adolescent children promoted parents’ willingness to educate their
adolescent children to care for others.
In addition to those personal, familial, and contextual resources, parents can
pool to overcome the difficulties they encounter, and positive parenting can
also be promoted and trained (e.g., Bakermans-Kranenburg, Van IJzendoorn,
& Juffer, 2003). Scientific knowledge on factors that can support or hinder posi-
tive parenting, or about the different reasons that motivate parents to enact
their role, is key to designing preventive interventions for parents. Such knowl-
edge, in fact, can inform effective ways to sustain parents’ positive behaviors,
motives, and resources, as well as to reduce or avoid the negative impact of risk
factors and nonoptimal parenting on children’s well-being. Indeed, preventive
interventions can help parents pool their available resources, transform their
motivations, monitor potential vulnerabilities, and avoid additional strains.
In this themed issue, the reader will find two examples of different, though
complementary, ways to promote positive parenting and responsible care in
preventive programs. Most available programs focus on training parenting
skills—especially communication, conflict, problem-solving, and discipline
skills (Kumpfer & Alvarado, 2003; Sanders, Turner, & Markie-Dadds,
2002)—yet scarce attention has been devoted to accompanying parents in
reflecting about their parental role, the needs of their children, and the mean-
ings associated to their parenting. The attachment-focused program and,
more explicitly, the intervention derived from the Relational-Symbolic Model
(RSM; Cigoli & Scabini, 2006) presented in this issue by Juffer et al. and by
Bertoni and colleagues, respectively, are among the few exceptions that
concentrate on both parental skills (e.g., discipline and listening skills as in
the contributions presented in this issue) and “parental identity” in the
RSM terminology (e.g., the role of parents for children’s needs for security
and exploration; the balance of care and responsibility in parenting). More-
over, while a few programs are delivered to parents in their homes (e.g.,
the VIPP-SD presented by Juffer and colleagues; Doyle, 2005), most existing
interventions are implemented with small groups of parents. Home-based
interventions have the advantages of being tailored on parents’ specific needs
and being highly accessible to parents, whereas group-based programs are
particularly appealing in terms of cost-effectiveness, as they can reach more
parents with less resources.
The group of parents, however, can be used just as the setting of the
intervention, as it is the case in most programs, or as a specific tool of the inter-
vention, as in the GFE_P presented in Bertoni and colleagues’ work in this
issue. Using the group as a tool of the intervention requires specific attention
to the constitution of the group, the alliance between the trainer, the group
and each participant, as well as to the contents and issues that the group itself
154 S. DONATO AND A. BERTONI

brings into the intervention. As such, using the group as a tool requires the
trainers to be equipped with additional competences in reading and managing
group dynamics as well as the program to adopt a semistructured format that
allows rearrangements in the contents and methods of the interventions.
Using the group as a tool of the intervention, however, can also have
important advantages, in that what happens in the group can be used to
reflect upon what can happen in families and to experience different relational
modes. Different ways of promoting parents’ responsible care also translate
into different ways to evaluate such interventions. In the present issue, the
two examples of programs differ in terms of the level of structure and defi-
nition of their protocols (Suchman, 1972): while VIPP-SD is a well-known,
widely implemented, highly structured program that allows experimental
design, the GFE_P is an innovative program purposely adopting a semistruc-
tured, though manualized, format that requires more nuanced qualitative
designs for its evaluation.
In sum, this themed issue presents studies on risks and resources
connected to parenting throughout children’s development. Knowledge about
such factors provides important insight for designing effective preventive
interventions for parents. Two interventions that integrate a focus on
parental identity issues with the traditional attention to parenting skills were
also presented. Evaluations of such programs complete the itinerary of this
themed issue from basic research to program development, implementation,
and assessment.

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