Sophie Havighurst

Who they are

Havighurst's affiliation on the 2010 paper is Mindful: Centre for Training and Research in Developmental Health, University of Melbourne, Australia.

This page records only what the papers and their published records state. Biography beyond the cited work is not given here.

Key papers

Tuning in to Kids: improving emotion socialization practices in parents of preschool children, findings from a community trial (2010), with Wilson, Harley, Prior and Kehoe. The study randomly assigned 216 primary caregivers of children aged four to five to the programme or to a waiting list. The programme ran for six group sessions plus two boosters. Parents in the programme reported better awareness and regulation of their own emotions, more emotion coaching and fewer emotionally dismissive beliefs and behaviours. Observations showed more use of emotion labels and more discussion of the causes and consequences of emotions. Children's emotional knowledge improved, and both parents and teachers reported fewer behaviour problems.

Key ideas

The programme rests on the idea that how parents respond to and coach their children's emotions shapes children's emotional and behavioural functioning. A 2012 effectiveness trial led by Katherine Wilson, with Havighurst, found that when community practitioners delivered the programme, parents became less dismissive and more coaching, and reported a greater reduction in behaviour problems than the waitlist group.

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