The design of Building Strength through Coping was informed by over 30 years of research on parental influences on children’s coping with stress, including numerous studies by the program developers. As we created the program, we received significant input from parents and children through focus groups and individual interviews.
Note: Author’s names in bold were members of the program development and evaluation team.
Reviews of Previous Parenting Research Informing the Program Design
Denham, S. A., Bassett, H. H., & Wyatt, T. (2014). The socialization of emotional competence. In J. Grusec & P. Hastings (Eds.), The handbook of socialization (2nd ed., pp. 590–613). New York: Guilford Press.
Gottman, JM.; Katz, LF.; Hooven, C. (1997). Meta-emotion: How families communicate emotionally. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Johnson, A. M., Hawes, D. J., Eisenberg, N., Kohlhoff, J, & Dudeney, J. (2017). Emotion socialization and child conduct problems: A comprehensive review and meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 54, 65–80.
Kiss, M., Fechete, G., Pop, M., & Sus, G. (2014). Early childhood self-regulation in context: Parental and familial environmental influences. Cognition, Brain, and Behavior, 18, 55-85.
Lucas-Thompson, R. G., & Goldberg, W. A. (2011). Family relationships and children’s stress responses. Advances in Child Development and Behavior, 40, 243-299.
Mermelshtime, R. (2017). Parent-child interactions: A review of the literature on scaffolding. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 87, 241-254.
Morris, A. S., Criss, M. M., Silk, J. S., & Houltberg, B. J. (2017). The impact of parenting on emotion regulation during childhood and adolescence. Child Development Perspectives, 11, 233-238.
Power, T. G. (2004). Stress and coping in childhood: The parents’ role. Parenting: Science and Practice, 4, 271-317.
Power, T. G., Dahlquist, L. M., & Pinder, W. (2019). Parenting children with a chronic health condition. In B. H. Bornstein (Ed.), Handbook of parenting. Volume 1. Children and parenting. 3 ed. (pp. 597-624). New York: Routledge.
Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J., & Skinner, E. A. (2016). The development of coping: Implications for psychopathology and resilience. In D. Cicchetti (Ed)., Developmental Psychopathology, 3rd Ed. Oxford, England: John Wiley & Sons.
Selected Research by Program Developers Informing the Program Design
Dahlquist, L.M., Pendley, J.S., Power, T.G., Landthrip, D.S., Jones, C.L., & Steuber, C.P. (2001). Adult command structure and child distress during invasive cancer procedures. Children’s Health Care, 30, 151-167.
Dahlquist, L.M., Power, T.G., & Carlson, L. (1995). Physician and parent behavior during invasive cancer procedures: Relationships to child behavioral distress. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 20, 477‑490.
Dahlquist, L. M., Power, T. G., Hahn, A., Hoehn, J., Thompson, C. C., Herbert, L. J., Law, E. F. & Bollinger, M. E. (2015). Parenting and independent problem-solving in preschool children with food allergy. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 40, 96-108.
Hardy, D.F., Power, T.G., & Jaedicke, S. (1993). Examining the relationship of parenting to children’s coping with everyday stress. Child Development, 64, 1829‑1841.
Hasan, N., & Power, T. G. (2002). Optimism and pessimism in children: A study of parenting correlates. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 26, 185-191.
Hasan, N., & Power, T. G. (2004). Children’s appraisal of major life events. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 74, 26-32.
Hood, B. K., Power, T.G., & Hill, L. G. (2009). Children’s appraisal of moderately stressful situations. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 33, 167-177.
Power, T. G., Beck, A., Silva Garcia, K., Duran Aguilar, N., Hopwood, V., Ramos, G., Olivera Guerrero, Y., Fisher, J. O., O’Connor, T. M., & Hughes, S. O. (2022). Low-income, Latina mothers’ scaffolding of preschooler’s behavior in a stressful situation and children’s self-regulation: A longitudinal study. Parenting: Science and Practice, 22, 181-187.
Power, T. G., Dahlquist, L. M., Thompson, S., & Warren, R. (2003). Interactions between children with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis and their mothers. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 28, 213-221.
Power, T. G., & Hill, L. G. (2008). Maternal protectiveness and child adjustment: A multidimensional study. Parenting: Science and Practice, 8, 187-212.
Power, T. G., & Wong, M. (2021). Chinese mother’s scaffolding of young children’s responses to stress and children’s depressive symptoms during the first year of primary school. Children and Youth Services Review, 131, 106284.
Steiner, E. M., Dahlquist, L. M., Power, T. G., & Bollinger, M. E. (2020). Intolerance of uncertainty and protective parenting in mothers of children with food allergy. Children’s Health Care, 49, 184-201.
Vannorsdall, T., Dahlquist, L., Pendley, J. S., & Power, T. G. (2004). The relation between nonessential touch and children’s distress during lumbar punctures. Children’s Health Care, 33, 299-315.
Wong, M., & Power, T. G. (2023). Parental depressive symptoms, parent attributional style, and child coping as predictors of depressive symptoms in children of parents with anxiety or mood disorders. Journal of Child Psychiatry and Human Development., 54, 352-364.
Wong, M., & Power, T. G. (2019). Links between coping strategies and depressive symptoms among girls and boys during the transition to primary school. Early Education and Development, 30, 178-195.
Building Strength Through Coping Publications
Power, T. G., Ramos, G. G., Guerrero, Y. O., Diaz Martinez, A., Parker, L. A., & Lee, S. (2021). Evaluation of a program to help low-income, Latina mothers help their children cope with stress. Journal of Primary Prevention, 42, 257-277.
This paper describes the evaluation of a program that provides low-income Latina mothers with skills to help their children cope with stress. Based on focus groups with mothers and their school-aged children in two locations, we developed a five-week program for helping mothers identify signs of stress in their children, learn effective emotion-coaching skills, and learn how to effectively encourage their children to use coping strategies that match the controllability of the situation. We conducted a randomized controlled trial in an urban (n = 13) and rural (n = 78) location in which we randomly assigned mothers to either an intervention or a no-treatment control condition. We completed eight implementations of the program (2 in the urban sample and 6 in the rural one). To evaluate the program, we collected pre- and post-assessments of mothers’ coping knowledge, emotion coaching, strategies for helping their children cope with stress, maternal self-efficacy in helping their children cope, general parenting practices, and general parenting self-efficacy. Observers assessed the fidelity of program delivery. Mothers who received the intervention, in contrast to those in the control condition, showed significant increases in their knowledge of strategies to help their children cope with stress, in reported emotion-coaching skills, and in the reported use of positive strategies for helping their children manage their behavior and emotions in stressful situations (i.e., helping their children relax and calm down, talking with their children about feelings, helping their children problem-solve, encouraging distraction, and helping their children improve their self-esteem). Post intervention, mothers reported increases in their efficacy for helping their children cope with stress. Analyses revealed no significant effects of the program on general parenting or general parenting self-efficacy, but did have the hypothesized effects on maternal knowledge, attitudes, and reported behavior. Subsequent research should examine the degree to which the program has effects over a longer time period and on children’s approaches to coping with stress.
Power, T. G., Silva Garcia, K., Diaz Martinez, A., Parker, L. A., & Ramos, G. G. (2022). Further evaluation of a program to help low-income, Latina mothers help their children cope with stress: Effects on parenting, child coping, and adjustment. Prevention Science, 23, 1018-1028.
Building Strength through Coping is a parenting education program designed to help Latina mothers help their school-age children cope with stress. A previous randomized controlled trial, with a pre-post design, showed that the program had the predicted effects on mothers’ knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. However, no data were collected from the children in that initial evaluation. The purpose of the present study was to determine if the program impacted children’s coping and adjustment. One hundred and twenty-two primarily first-generation, Latina mothers from rural Washington State were randomly assigned to the intervention or to a no treatment control. Seven implementations of the program were conducted. Mothers and their 8- to 13-year-old children completed assessments one week before the program started, one week after its completion, and three months later. The results for maternal behavior were largely replicated: at posttest, intervention mothers, compared to controls, reported higher levels of emotion coaching, showed greater self-efficacy for helping their child cope with stress, and were more likely to report positive strategies for scaffolding their child’s responses to stressful situations. Several maternal effects (e.g., emotion-coaching and maternal efficacy) continued at 3 months. Children of intervention mothers at post-test used more primary control coping strategies and reported fewer emotional symptoms; analyses of mothers’ ratings of child adjustment replicated the posttest child effects for emotional symptoms, showed a reduction in other psychological problems at both posttest and 3 months, and an increase in child prosocial behavior at 3 months. The results further support the program’s efficacy and provide the first evidence of its effects on child coping and adjustment.
English Language Pilot Implementations of Building Strength Through Coping
Guerrero, Y. O., Diaz Martinez, A., Parker, L. A., & Power, T. G. (2021)
To directly assess the relevance of this program to English-speaking mothers, 16 mothers of 9- to 12-year-old children in central Washington State were recruited to participate in English-language implementations in the spring of 2021. Three implementations were completed with 4 to 6 mothers per session. Due to COVID-19, the classes were conducted online. Although minor modifications were made to adapt the lessons to an online format, no changes were made to the program content. At the end of each lesson, mothers completed a short questionnaire where they rated the lesson on 5-point scales (from 1 = not at all to 5 = very much) indicating whether: 1) the information was presented clearly; 2) the information was relevant to them and their family; 3) they believed that what they learned that day would be helpful to them and their family; and 4) the information was interesting and engaging. After the final lesson, we conducted a short focus group with questions about the program content, activities, and how easily they could apply what they had learned at home with their child.
Average ratings on 5-point scales across all lessons and activities showed that these mothers found the lessons clear (M = 4.8, SD = .5), relevant (M = 4.7, SD = .5), helpful (M = 4.6, SD = .7), and interesting/engaging (M = 4.8, SD = .5). In the focus groups mothers reported that the program: 1) helped them become more aware of how they typically responded to their child’s emotions; 2) gave them strategies for validating and managing child emotions; and 3) helped them manage their own emotions when interacting with their child. They found that learning to identify controllable and uncontrollable aspects of stressful situations was useful and this aspect of the program helped them cope with stresses in their own lives. Mothers made numerous positive comments about the program structure—its flow, the quality of the scenarios, and the value of facilitators using mother-generated examples to illustrate and apply program content. They believed the program was valuable for children of this age and for dealing with stresses they were currently experiencing (including, in this case, the stresses of the pandemic). Finally, mothers found the program welcoming and reported that the facilitators were particularly skillful in encouraging mothers to contribute and freely express their ideas.