About the program

Dads Tuning in to Kids is a parenting group program for fathers or male carers of children aged 3 to 10 years old. The program fosters father-child connection. It aims to promote the development of emotional competence and prevent behaviour problems in young children by improving fathers' or father figures’ emotional competence and skills.

Program structure

Dads Tuning in to Kids is delivered in 7 x 2-hour weekly sessions with a structured manual for the facilitator to follow. The manual includes a range of resources, including parent handouts & video materials. Trained facilitators are granted access to all program resources via an online facilitator portal.

Evaluation and effectiveness

Building on findings from an earlier pilot study, a randomised control trial (RCT) was undertaken to test the efficacy of a father specific adaptation of the Tuning into Kids program (Havighurst et al., 2019). The RCT involved 162 fathers with 4-year-old children in Melbourne, Australia. Following the program, father participants showed greater improvements in empathy, emotional expressive encouragement and parenting confidence compared to participants in the control group. Fathers in the program also reported higher levels of children’s functioning following the program compared to those in the control group. However, partners and teachers did not report the same changes in children.

A full list and summary of the research is available on the Tuning in to Kids website.

Reference

Havighurst, S. S., Wilson, K. R., Harley, A. E., & Kehoe, C. E. (2019). Dads Tuning in to Kids: A randomized controlled trial of an emotion socialization parenting program for fathers. Social Development, 28(4), 979–997.