Parenting is the process of nurturing and fostering the physical, emotional, social, and cognitive development of a child to adulthood and across the lifespan (Brooks, 2012). Parental knowledge of parenting, parental skills, and parental self-efficacy are protective factors for reducing instances of child abuse and neglect (Ridings et al., 2017; Sanders et al., 2018) and promoting children’s emotional, social, and cognitive competencies (National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine [NASEM], 2016). Evidence-based parenting programs (EBPP) have been demonstrated to be effective for producing desired outcomes in well-controlled studies (Olds et al., 2003; Prinz et al., 2009). Program effectiveness in real-world conditions, however, does not achieve the same results. One of the primary challenges is low parental participation rates (Eisner & Meidert, 2011; Heinrichs et al., 2005). Parenting programs will not have their desired impact unless parents participate (Lundahl et al., 2006; Wagner et al., 2000). Potential solutions to enhance parent engagement include gender-specific parenting interventions, incorporating peer support components, and utilizing the internet for online dissemination of parenting interventions. Despite parents’ low participation in parenting programs, parents seem motivated to receive information and support in their parenting roles, as indicated by their behavior on the internet (Baker et al., 2017; Duggan et al., 2015). One approach to explore enhancing parent engagement in parenting programs involves centering the perspective of users (i.e., parents). Specifically, it is possible to observe the nature of parent information seeking and sharing online. While extant studies have delved into parents’ online discourse, their limitations, including sampling constraints and a narrow focus on researcher selected topics, hinder a comprehensive understanding of parents’ diverse needs and interactions online. Informed by human-centered design (HCD) principles, this multi-method dissertation project explored traces of parents’ online behavior to understand their information needs and preferences for engaging with online parenting content utilizing two different approaches. Specifically, this dissertation explored a dataset of parenting posts from 2019-2022 using the computational approach of unsupervised machine learning to identify (a) the nature and prevalence of topics parents discuss online, (b) whether topics differed in mother-centric and father-centric forums, and (c) whether topics changed since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Next, this dissertation examined a dataset of popularized posts and comments (N=180) using qualitative content analysis to explore (a) the content parents popularize on online parenting forums, (b) the types of interactions and emotions present, and (c) whether content and interactions differed in mother-centric and father-centric forums.
This project yielded several key findings across studies. Using computational unsupervised machine learning techniques, the aggregated topic model (N=130,226 posts) revealed the extent to which parent-centered topics, such as postpartum depression/ anxiety and work-family interface were common. Child-centered topics were predominantly related to perinatal care issues. Additionally, there was a modest overlap between the types of topics discussed by parents and those in parenting frameworks and established EBPP. Second, mother-centric and father-centric models produced similar topics related to early childcare and varying topics that might be rooted in gendered differences in parenting roles. Third, although there were similarities between the pre and post-COVID models, the latter highlighted topics, like challenges in parent mental health and child entertainment/education recommendations, that were potentially exacerbated by the pandemic. As for the qualitative content analysis portion of the study, parents shared a range of parenting challenges and successes with a preference for storytelling over explicit advice-seeking. Second, various positive interactions emerged in popularized comments and appear to be providing peer support. Third, users in audience-specific forums (mother-centric and father-centric) had distinct content and interaction styles, highlighting gendered differences in parenting roles.
Examining parents’ discourse and interactions online has multiple implications for research, practice, and policy. Researchers can leverage the observations of parents’ preferred topics and format for future phases of HCD to inform the development and testing of both mixed audience (i.e., tailored to all parents) and audience-specific interventions (i.e., tailored to mothers and fathers separately). Practical implications call for the expansion of services to meet the growing demand for online parenting information and support. Practitioners are encouraged to refine online interventions to focus on parents’ preferred topics, supplement interventions with parent-centered services (i.e., focus on parents’ well-being and capacity to parent), and adopt role-specific peer support models. Finally, policy implications suggest exploring family-friendly policies (e.g., flexible work hours, subsidies for early childcare), advocating for bills that provide child savings accounts for lower/moderate-income families, and improving the funding and access of perinatal education programs to better support expectant parents during the transition into parenthood. Ultimately, this work is intended to inform the development of parent-centered interventions that are engaging and accessible with the overarching goal of promoting child and family well-being.
