Pilot Randomised Controlled Trial of a Prototype Emotion Socialisation Parenting Program: An Ecological Momentary Intervention

Background: Despite evidence showing that parenting interventions reduce rates of child mental health problems, their reach and engagement remain low. Daily Growth is a digital parenting program designed to improve parent and child emotion regulation using an ecological momentary intervention (EMI) approach. Daily Growth sends twice-daily prompts and delivers 3-minute videos tailored to a recent parenting situation, offering three program types to meet different parent needs/preferences. EMI has not been tested in a parenting program. This pilot aimed to assess the feasibility and acceptability of the EMI design and a small prototype of Daily Growth, offering two of the three programs (Emotion Coaching; Active Play) via 10 of 90 planned videos. Methods: A pilot randomised controlled trial design recruited online 184 Australian parents of children 2-4 years and randomised to intervention (n=96) or active control (n=88). Participants completed a 25-minute online survey at baseline and two-weeks’ post. Over two weeks, participants received twice-daily 1-minute EMI surveys via email. If they reported any parent or child negative affect or emotion dysregulation, they were randomised in-the-moment to receive an online Emotion Coaching or Active Play resource via a 3-minute video, or control parents were sent a link to a parenting website—the Raising Children Network. For both intervention and control parents, parenting support (videos or web links) was tailored to 1 of 5 selected parenting situations. Results: 70% of parents were retained to 2-week post survey, and two-thirds completed at least half of the daily surveys. Despite technical errors/challenges, most parents reported Daily Growth was easy to use (77%), would recommend Daily Growth to other parents (83%), use skills learned (73%), and were satisfied (62%). Conclusions: This pilot evaluated whether brief, tailored videos could engage parents in real time. Findings suggest the Daily Growth prototype was feasible and well-received, supporting further implementation in a larger trial.Keywords: Daily Growth; emotion coaching; active play; emotion socialisation; intervention; parenting; emotion regulation; child development