Promoting positive parenting in Europe: New challenges for the European Society for Developmental Psychology

This paper outlines the Council of Europe's initiative of positive parenting as being of high importance for developmental and educational science, for family and social policy, and society in general. It also describes how European developmental psychology and its representatives may contribute to this initiative by promoting research on the parents' socialization role in modern societies, on the effective ways of supporting parents to preserve families under at-risk circumstances, and on the best ways to deliver parental support by means of evidence-based parenting programmes. Evidence-based programming also involves having the programme properly implemented and integrated into the community. The transfer of this knowledge to best practices is also emphasized, based on empowerment and partnership, to validate parent support work. The paper ends with the contributions of ESDP to the initiative on positive parenting and future directions to face this challenge.