Do parenting intervention effects last?: Examining longer-term effects of parenting interventions on disruptive child behavior

In this thesis, we have found that parenting interventions have the longer-term effects that they aim to have: they reduce disruptive child behavior in families struggling to manage disruptive child behavior. For these families, disruptive child behavior remains reduced, at least up to three years post-intervention. In contrast to theories about how more disruptive child behavior translates to more emotional and peer problems, less disruptive child behavior does not automatically translate into less emotional and peer problems. It remains yet unknown why maintained improvements in child behavior do not evolve into more protective benefits. We found no evidence that encouraging parents to set goals about changing parent-child interactions improves intervention effects on parenting and child behavior. This thesis therefore shows that parenting intervention effects generally last, but that these lasting effects are specific to reduced disruptive child behavior, and specific to families for whom parenting interventions such as Incredible Years were originally designed: families with severe coercive interactions.