Predictors of Participation in Parenting Workshops

Raising Healthy Children is a multi-year, experimental test of a school-based intervention that seeks to promote positive youth development and prevent problem behavior among children recruited into the project in the first or second grade of elementary school. The primary components of the intervention include staff development for teachers in classroom management and instruction, in-home services for high-risk children and their families, and parenting workshops for parents with students attending intervention schools. This paper examines predictors of attendance at parenting workshops. The study panel (n = 272) consists of families with a student who remained at an intervention school through the first five years of the project. Variables that were considered as predictors of parent attendance include social demographic characteristics, parent characteristics (at-risk behavior and smoking), and child characteristics (behavior problems and academic achievement). Parent education and parent's perception of their child's antisocial behavior both had positive and statistically significant bivariate associations with attendance. These two variables were also significantly positively associated with attendance in a multivariate model that included low-income and single-parent status, parent smoking and at-risk behavior, and parent rating of child's antisocial behavior and academic performance. Parents with at-risk behaviors were not significantly more or less likely to attend workshops.