Effects of the Early Risers Program on Children's Social Skills and Parents' Emotion and Cognition

The Early Risers Skills for Success Program provides comprehensive skills training to children with adjustment problems and offers parent training to their parents. The present study expects parenting training contributes to increases in parenting confidence and involvement and decreases in relational frustration of parents in the program compared with the control. We also want to know whether improving children?s social competence mediates the program?s effects on parents? positive feeling and cognition. 114 early elementary school students and their parents received the intervention and training and 76 children and parents were in the control. Five waves of data were collected over two years. Parenting training was found to have no effects on parental emotion and cognitions over time. Teacher-rated social skills of children were found to have significant fixed effects on parent well-being and involvement over time. Therefore, children?s social skills mediated the program?s effects on parents? emotion and cognition