When one size doesn’t fit all: temperament-based parenting interventions - Allen - 2015 - Article

In the research area of parenting and child psychopathology, there is a growing awareness of the need for early intervention and prevention work. Although recently various developments have occurred regarding parenting interventions for a variety of childhood mental disorders, there are still a lot of problems with current "best practice" parenting interventions. Common problems in these interventions are: (1) the lack of family engagement; (2) failure to achieve clinically significant improvements for a substantial number of families, and; (3) maintaining the treatment gains over time. The general question that is left unanswered is: "What works best for whom?" In this paper, a review is presented regarding the research and theory about the influence of the relationship between child temperament and parenting on the development of child psychopathology and social-emotional skills. Knowledge from this research can be used to inform the selection and assessment of families in early intervention and prevention programs, as well as the specific content and delivery of parenting interventions.

The main outcome of this review paper is that temperatent-based parenting programs, even though they are still at an early stage in terms of evaluation, seem to offer a promising avenue for the treatment of children with a wider range of mental health problems. Temperament-based parenting programs aim to tailor existing parenting strategies to provide a better "fit" for families on the basis of the child's temperament profile. Temperament is a biologically-based, relatively stable personality trait, consisting of affective, attentional, sensory, and behavioural response systems. Temperament has been shown to have important influences on the development of children. Moreover, research has shown that certain temperament traits or combinations of traits and family risk factors increase the risk for later psychopathology, allowing children and families who are most in need of support to be identified. In line with this, child temperament research has been used to inform the content of parenting interventions. All in all, research suggests that parenting tailored to match children's unique temperament profile may promote self-regulation and reduce emotional and behavioural problems. Yet, because temperament is a relatively stable trait, the child's temperament itself seems difficult to alter. Instead, altering the parenting style seems to provide a promising way of reducing children's emotional and behavioral problems.