The Incredible Years® Series Evidence-based Parenting Programs

In the Baby Parenting Program, parents learn how to:

• Help their babies feel loved, safe, and secure.
• Promote attachment
• Encourage their babies’ physical and language development.

The Well-Baby Program can be used by primary care providers, health visitors, pediatricians, and other health providers in primary care settings or in the home to support parents with babies from birth to 9 months of age. This program is designed to help clinicians provide infant health care that promotes responsive, nurturing parenting that will strengthen babies’ attachment and home safety as well as their cognitive, language, social and emotional development.

This program can be implemented as a supplement to the Baby Parenting Training Program.

In the Toddler Parenting Program (Basic), parents learn how to:

• Help their toddlers feel loved and secure
• Encourage their toddler’s language, social, and emotional development.
• Establish clear and predictable routines.
• Handle separations and reunions
• Use positive discipline to manage misbehavior.

The Attentive Parenting® program is a “universal” parenting program. It can be offered to ALL parents to promote their children’s emotional regulation, social competence, problem solving, reading and school readiness.

This is not a program for children with significant behavior or developmental problems or family mental health difficulties, although it may be used as a supplement to the Basic programs or for follow up booster sessions.

The Preschool Parenting Program (Basic) strengthens positive parent-child interactions and attachment, reducing harsh discipline and fostering parents’ ability to promote children’s social, emotional, and language development. Parents also learn how to build school readiness skills and are encouraged to partner with teachers and daycare professionals so they can promote children’s emotional regulation and social skills. 

The School Readiness program is a parenting program designed to promote preschool children’s school readiness. The objectives are to improve children’s school readiness by enhancing their language, reading, and social skills. The School Readiness Program may offered as a 4–6 week prevention program for parents of preschool or kindergarten children (ages 3–6 years), or as a supplement to the Preschool Basic Parent Program.

The School Age Parenting Program (Basic) strengthens parent-child interactions and attachment, reducing harsh discipline and fostering parents’ ability to promote children’s social, emotional, and academic development.

Parents learn how to:

• Monitor children after school
• Set rules regarding TV, computer, and drug use
• Support children’s homework
• Partner with teachers so that they can promote children’s academic, social, and emotional skills

*This program is for parents who have already completed one of our basic parenting programs

The Advanced Parenting Program builds on the Preschool and School Age Parenting Programs (Basic) by focusing on parents’ interpersonal issues such as:

• Effective communication and problem solving skills
• Anger and depression management
• Ways to give and get support
• Family meetings 

This program is offered to parents of young children on the Autism spectrum or with language delays to promote children’s emotional regulation, social competence, language skills, school readiness, and relationships with others.

Because many group leaders delivering the Toddler or Preschool Basic programs often have several parents in their group with children on the spectrum or with language delays, some of these vignettes can be easily used to replace or supplement several of the Toddler or Preschool Basic program vignettes.

This 6 session program can be offered to both Teachers and Parents working with preschool children on the Autism Spectrum. *Parents participating in the Helping Preschool Children with Autism Program should have previously attended the Autism Parenting program. 

Program topics include:

• Promoting language development
• Promoting social interactions
• Promoting emotion literacy & self-regulation

The Incredible Years^® offers a Home Visiting Coach protocol for Baby, Toddler, Preschool, and School Age Basic Parent Programs. The Home Visiting Coach model can be used in conjunction with the group-based model, or the entire curriculum can be delivered with individual families entirely in the homes. Our Home Coaching manuals help facilitators tailor the content of the programs for individual delivery in the homes. To implement in the home, facilitators need the full program curriculum kit, plus the supplemental manual for home coaching.