Improving Parenting Practices for Child Development: Evidence From a Group‐Based Intervention in Sierra Leone

We examine the impact of an integrated parenting program designed to improve parent–child interactions. Exploiting experimental variation in program access, we show that the intervention improves the overall parenting practice index by 0.38 standard deviations and increases parental material investments by 0.64 standard deviations. We also find improvements in children's health, including a 3‐percentage‐point reduction in the prevalence of wasting and a rightward shift in the distribution of weight‐for‐height z ‐scores. These results suggest that augmenting standard nutritional counselling with a parenting curriculum focused on stimulation and child protection can generate meaningful gains in children's long‐term well‐being.