Effects of a positive discipline program on parenting outcomes

Parental use of punishment remains a significant concern considering its prevalence and negative impacts on children's well-being. Positive Discipline in Everyday Parenting (PDEP) is a group-based program aimed at helping parents shift away from the use of punitive parenting practices toward positive discipline. This quasi-experimental PDEP evaluation examined self-reported parenting practices in a Canadian sample of 183 parents of children aged 2-6 years. There were 101 parents in the experimental condition, and 82 parents in the wait-list comparison group. Data were collected as part of a larger Canadian project spanning five data collection cycles (2018-2019 until 2023-2024) and gathered information on PDEP outcomes through a variety of methods. Compared with the wait-list group, parents who completed PDEP reported a statistically significant decrease in physical punishment use (e.g., spanking) and emotional punishment (e.g., making child sit alone in corner or another room; taking away an activity), and an increase in proactive parenting (e.g., preparing child for an activity; explaining the reason for a request) from pre- to post-program and from pre-program to 1-month follow-up. The findings represented small (emotional punishment) and large (physical punishment, proactive parenting) effect sizes. This first experimental evaluation of PDEP, which is fundamentally different from behavior management interventions, indicates that the program was effective in reducing parental use of punishment-based practices and increasing proactive parenting. Additional research is warranted that uses a fully randomized design and that examines parenting effects in ways that complement self-report measures.