A growing body of literature is emerging to examine the utility of emotion-focused parenting programs, as behaviorally-based programs currently dominate the parenting literature. Few of those studies examine differences in how Black parents benefit from emotion-focused parenting programs when they are often situated in the literature as unsupportive, which ignores cultural differences in parenting values and practices (Bocknek et al., 2009; Leerkes et al., 2015). However, evidence indicates that these practices are adaptive in Black families (e.g., McLoyd et al., 2019). This mixed-method randomized pilot study sought to examine preliminary fidelity, efficacy, and acceptability of a virtually-delivered Tuning in to Kids (TIK; Havighurst & Harley, 2007), an emotion-focused parenting program targeting parenting practices and children’s emotion regulation through a strengths-based approach using emotion coaching strategies. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used to examine the impact of TIK for Black parents (N = 21; 9 Intervention; 12 Waitlist Control) of preschoolers based in the United States. Parents in both groups completed pre-, post-test, and one-month follow-up assessments. While there were no statistically significant main effects for the treatment group, based on this small sample, these preliminary quantitative results indicate greater positive trends for parents in the TIK condition compared to parents in a waitlist control group. The qualitative interviews provide essential information to support further examinations of TIK within a sample of Black parents. These promising preliminary outcomes coupled with interview data suggest that TIK is a promising parenting program to improve Black parents’ emotion coaching beliefs and positive parenting practices, which indicates the need for future research to investigate the effectiveness of TIK and other emotion-focused parenting programs with Black parents and assess the necessity of future cultural adaptations.
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