ABSTRACT
Parenting practices have a profound effect on children's well-being and are a core target of several psychological interventions for child mental health. However, there is only limited understanding in HCI so far about how to design socio-technical systems that could support positive shifts in parent-child social practices in situ. This paper focuses on parental socialisation of emotion as an exemplar context in which to explore this question. We present a two-step study, combining theory-driven identification of plausible design directions with co-design workshops with 22 parents of children aged 6-10 years. Our data suggest the potential for technology-enabled systems that aim to facilitate positive changes in parent-child social practices in situ, and highlight a number of plausible design directions to explore in future work.
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: To investigate the observation that perpetrators of abusive head trauma engage in repeated shakings because shaking "works" to quiet the infant. METHODS: Sixty first-time parent couples individually cared for a programmable model infant in two consecutive 7-min trials. After six minutes of consolable followed by inconsolable crying, parents selected one of three soothing techniques. For trial one, parents were randomized to a "Successful" or "Failed" Soothing Condition. Whether the soothing technique was repeated after trial two was determined by the study investigators. Parents rated their frustration after each trial. RESULTS: As hypothesized, parents were more likely to repeat a soothing technique that "worked" in trial one. Compared to fathers, mothers reported more frustration when soothing failed. CONCLUSIONS: That caregivers were more likely to repeat a successful soothing technique converges with perpetrator confessions that crying cessation after shaking may be a reason why shaking is used repeatedly in response to crying.
