Building Blocks
The Cool Little Kids parent training is designed for parents of toddlers and preschool children aged 3 to 6 years who are shy and/or anxious. The training provides parents with practical tools to help them cope with this behavior and can support the development of their child’s self-confidence. At present, we are investigating which elements of this parent training are most effective within a research project called ‘Bouwstenen van Succes’ (Building Blocks).
The aim of this project
All children feel afraid from time to time, and this is completely normal. However, some children are so anxious of shy that it becomes difficult for them and may lead to problems. Unfortunately, these anxiety problems are often recognized at a later stage. Previous research has shown that shy and withdrawn children between the ages of 3 to 6 are more likely to develop anxiety problems later in life.
Within the Building Blocks project, we offer the Cool Little Kids parent training to parents of these children. This training aims to help parents cope with their child’s anxious or shy behavior, and to strengthen their child’s confidence. We hope that this will reduce the likelihood that these children will experience anxiety problems later in life.
The aim of this specific project is to carefully examine how the training works, and to identify which effective ‘building blocks’ make the Cool Little Kids parent training successful. With this information, we aim to further improve the training.
The program
For this study, the Cool Little Kids parent training is delivered entirely online in Dutch by two experienced professionals. Parents receive information about anxious and shy behavior in young children and learn strategies and techniques to reduce and/or prevent anxious behavior. These techniques can be practiced with professional guidance.
The training consists of 6 sessions, each lasting 1.5 hours. The first four sessions take place weekly. The fifth session takes place after two weeks, and the final session takes place one month later. The parent training is delivered in groups of parents of 6-8 children and takes place fully online via a free video conferencing platform (e.g., Microsoft Teams or Zoom).
What does participation involve?
To study the effectiveness of the Cool Litte Kids intervention, we ask parents not only to attend the training but also to complete weekly questionnaires.
- Parents will be asked to complete a longer questionnaire of approximately 30 minutes on three occasions:
- Directly at the start of the study;
- Immediately after the final session of the 10-week Cool Little Kids parent training; and
- Three months after the final training session.
- In addition, during the weeks begore the start of the training and throughout the training period, so a total of 12-16 weeks, parents will be asked to complete a short questionnaire twice a week, which takes no more than 5 minutes.
Do you speak Dutch? And is your child more shy/anxious compared to his or her peers? Visit our Dutch website to see more information about joining one of our programs!
Go to our Dutch website!