Social and emotional skills for nurturing parenting: A qualitative examination

Abstract

Social and emotional skills develop within cultural contexts and shape parenting behaviors, yet little work has examined the specific skills parents themselves consider important for parenting, or the factors they perceive as supporting these skills, in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Centering parents’ own conceptualizations, this two-phase descriptive qualitative study with 54 parents living in Colombia combined an initial phase of focus groups and individual interviews with a second phase of targeted individual interviews, and used thematic analysis to explore the social and emotional skills parents identify as relevant to parenting and the risk and protective factors perceived to hinder or enhance their development. Our findings highlight the importance of emotional awareness, self-regulation, communication, cooperation, and problem-solving skills in adulthood for nurturing parenting and promoting children’s social and emotional development. Parents’ upbringing and support networks emerged as significant factors shaping skill development and child-rearing practices. These findings emphasize the need for policies and interventions, grounded in caregivers’ own perspectives, to promote social and emotional skills for parents in LMIC contexts.