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Effects of the Parental Friendship Coaching Intervention on Parental Emotion Socialization of Children with ADHD

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Abstract

Parental emotion-related socialization behaviors shape children’s socioemotional functioning and appear important for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The Parental Friendship Coaching (PFC) intervention teaches parents to coach their children with ADHD in friendship skills, which includes managing emotions. We examined whether PFC, relative to psychoeducation and social support (Coping with ADHD through Relationships and Education; CARE), improved parental emotion-related socialization behaviors, child affect with a friend, and child social behaviors related to emotional difficulties. Participants were 172 families of children with ADHD (ages 6–11, 30% female), randomized to PFC or CARE. At baseline, children and their real-life friends interacted and their affect was coded. Parents coached their child in friendship skills before and after the child-friend interaction, and parents’ praise, warmth, criticism, and discussion of emotion-related friendship strategies were coded. Parents and teachers reported children’s withdrawn/depressed and aggressive behaviors. Results suggested that PFC (relative to CARE) led to parents providing more emotion strategies and praise at post-treatment and follow-up, and more warmth at follow-up, and to children showing less withdrawn/depressed behavior at follow-up. For bidirectional relationships from baseline to post-treatment, more parental warmth was associated with less child withdrawn/depressed behavior, and more parental criticism with more child aggression. More child withdrawn/depressed behavior and positive affect at post-treatment were associated with more parental criticism at follow-up. After corrections for multiple comparisons, only PFC effects on praise and emotion strategies at post-treatment, and praise and withdrawn/depressed behavior at follow-up, maintained. Implications are discussed for supporting socioemotional functioning in children with ADHD.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the participating families and the great investment from study staff members (including collaborators and many graduate and undergraduate students) who made this research possible.

Funding

This work was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, 2136 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada

    Sophie Smit & Amori Yee Mikami

  2. Département de Psychoéducation Et de Psychologie, Université du Québec en Outaouais, 283 Alexandre Tache Boulevard, Gatineau, QC, J8X 3X7, Canada

    Sébastien Normand

  3. Institut du Savoir Montfort & Hôpital Montfort, 713, chemin Montréal, Ottawa, ON, K1K 0T2 , Canada

    Sébastien Normand

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  1. Sophie Smit
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  2. Amori Yee Mikami
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Correspondence to Sophie Smit.

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Informed consent was obtained from parents and teachers for this study, and children provided assent.

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Procedures were approved by all associated ethics boards (UBC Behavioural Research Ethics Board, Comité d'éthique de la recherche de l'Université du Québec en Outaouais, and school districts and hospitals which supported recruitment or where teachers completed study measures about child participants).

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Smit, S., Mikami, A.Y. & Normand, S. Effects of the Parental Friendship Coaching Intervention on Parental Emotion Socialization of Children with ADHD. Res Child Adolesc Psychopathol 50, 101–115 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-021-00818-9

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