Responsive parenting might not solve all the world’s problems, but it’s a good place to start.

ChildFund
ChildFund
Sep 5, 2018 · 6 min read
In a slum in Nairobi, Kenya, an unaccompanied 3-year-old looks out over the Ngong River. Safety hazards abound in the community, but caregivers often lack the knowledge and resources to protect children from harm or ensure they’re developmentally on track. ChildFund works directly with parents to help them stimulate their young children’s brain development in a healthy, safe environment.

Some say parenting young children doesn’t come with a handbook: It’s an adventure in trusting your intuition. Others pore through every book available on the subject, eager to learn best practices for everything. Whatever camp you’re in, most parents tend to agree on a few things: Get regular checkups. No solids before six months. Take time to play with the children to help them learn and grow.

In impoverished communities around the world, however, these “common-sense” rules for the first years of life aren’t so common; often, they don’t even make much sense to parents. When the nearest health clinic is a day’s walk or more away, why take the child if she isn’t sick? When you work 14 hours a day just to get by, how could you possibly have time for something as frivolous as play? Poverty strains access to every resource parents need to raise their children in loving, healthy ways: nutritious food, quality medical care and, perhaps most importantly, education on just why the early years of life are so crucial to development.

Young children attend a responsive parenting session with their caregivers in Nairobi. Participants say that the sessions have helped many fathers become more involved in their children’s lives.

ChildFund’s responsive and protective parenting programming in under-resourced communities aims to empower parents and other primary caregivers with the knowledge and practical skills they need to give children a strong start in life. Our programs are based on the Nurturing Care Framework, an evidence-based guide to early childhood development launched in May 2018 by global development partners like WHO, UNICEF and World Bank Group. The data is clear: Early experiences have a profound impact on children’s development, and investing in parent education can alter these experiences for the better. In the words of American pediatrician and child development researcher Dimitri Christakis, “If we change the beginning of the story, we change the whole story.”

In some places where we work, responsive parenting programs operate through group sessions held in spaces where parents already gather on a regular basis, such as early childhood development (ECD) centers. The sessions use fun, interactive activities like games and role playing to build on what parents already know and do. Programs also integrate home visits in which trained community health volunteers visit the most vulnerable families to review information learned, making referrals to health, social welfare and other locally available services when necessary.

“There are several different pathways to infant health and security: access to quality health care, nutrition, a safe environment, opportunities for play and early learning,” says Kathryn Moore, ChildFund’s senior technical advisor for early childhood development, whose work with children under 5 has recently taken her to several countries where ChildFund implements parenting programs, including Kenya and Zambia. “And working with parents and other primary caregivers, we address most of these. Research tells us that if we support caregivers to build responsive parenting skills while their children are young, children are much more likely to achieve their developmental milestones — not just in the early years, but in school and beyond.”

Scenes from a ChildFund responsive parenting session in Kafue, Zambia, where a community health volunteer discusses the critical importance of prenatal care. The infant mortality rate in Zambia is 70 per 1,000 live births, partially due to the low number of women in rural areas who seek health care during pregnancy.

What exactly are responsive parenting skills? According to Moore, that’s an umbrella term that encompasses vast territory: for example, how to monitor children’s growth, nutrition and overall health from conception to age 5, stimulate infants and young children through play and communication, consistently observe and respond to them and discipline them in positive ways. ChildFund enhances parents’ knowledge on topics such as the benefits of breastfeeding, the importance of regular health checkups, and why it’s unsafe to leave young children alone at home. The idea is to help parents co-create an environment in which children can grow up healthy and secure, confident that when they express their needs, an adult will consistently respond with love.

Purity, a mother of two who participates in the program in Kenya, recalls how she used to yell and beat her older son if he bothered her when she was busy.

“The sessions taught me the importance of positive discipline. With my 2-year-old daughter, I talk softly to her and explain that I am busy, then let her tell me what she needs,” Purity says. “And she communicates more, she’s more free, than my older child.”

Two-year-old Sandra sits at Purity’s feet outside their home in Nairobi.

“In our culture, children don’t play with adults and are not supposed to be in the same social spaces as adults,” says another mom in Zambia. “Now, when a child comes, we listen to them and respond to them kindly and help the child with what they need.”

And the sessions aren’t just for parents. Due to the prevalence of HIV and AIDS in Africa, many grandparents and other relatives are now responsible for raising children who lost their parents to the disease. “I learned a lot of things that I did not know when I was raising my children, like how to take care of the pregnant women and how to care for the baby and talk to him, even when in the womb,” says one grandmother in Zambia. “Even at my age, I’m learning new things.”

Responsive parenting sessions are an all-ages family affair: moms, dads, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles and other relatives caring for children all participate.

The ripple effect of caregiver empowerment touches every facet of community life, including public health. In Kenya — where over 100,000 children under age 14 are living with HIV — ChildFund’s ECD parenting program funded by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation works primarily with affected children and families in high-prevalence areas. Caregivers in communities with access to responsive parenting programs are increasingly aware of the need for quality health care to promote child development. As a result, demand for health services naturally rises in these communities.

Moore is excited for the program to grow and evolve through continued collaboration with foundations, local and national governments, community-based organizations and other partners. Right now, ChildFund is in the process developing a responsive parenting program model — in other words, she says, a consistent approach to parenting education “that ensures quality across the organization. So if you go to any community where we work and see a parenting session taking place, you’ll see the same high level of quality — but also respect for context-specific needs and partnerships — in the programs.”

That means more secure babies becoming resilient children becoming confident adults primed to problem-solve and tackle the most pressing issues in their communities and beyond. Who said parents can’t save the world?

ChildFund International

We are advocates for children worldwide, working to ensure that they have what they need to live at their potential throughout their lives: safety, health, nutrition, opportunity and more.

ChildFund

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ChildFund

Serving the world’s vulnerable #children since 1938. We promote societies that value and protect the rights of children. www.childfund.org

ChildFund International

We are advocates for children worldwide, working to ensure that they have what they need to live at their potential throughout their lives: safety, health, nutrition, opportunity and more.

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