About the program

Incredible Years is a group-based social learning model program for parents, teachers and children that reduces challenging behaviors in children and increases social and emotional learning and self-control skills. Develops parenting skills and increases parents' involvement in children's school experience.

Parent groups are grouped according to age: 

• 0 to 12 months 
• 1 to 3 years
• 3 to 6 years
• 6 to 12 years. 

Program structure

In the parent, teacher and child training programs, trained facilitators use video vignettes to structure the content and stimulate group discussions, problem solving and trigger practices related to participants’ goals. 

Evaluation and effectiveness

The program has been assessed through multiple randomised controlled trials in the U.S., New Zealand, and Europe. The programs have been found to be effective in strengthening teacher and parent management skills, improving children’s social and emotional competence and school readiness, and reducing behaviour problems. 

See the Incredible Years research library for more information.

References

Menting, A.T.A., Orobio de Castro, B., & Matthys, W. (2013) Effectiveness of the Incredible Years parent training to modify disruptive prosocial child behaviour: A meta-analytic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 33, 901-913.