Mitigating ACEs in Pediatric Primary Care: Cohort #2 With 6-24 Month Old Children

The aim is to determine if a brief intervention can affect parents' attitudes about physical punishment and other parenting behaviors.

A public health problem that needs to be solved is how to educate more parents about healthy discipline options. The investigators aim to mitigate adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) by integrating evidence-based parent training into pediatric primary care. Some of the most modifiable ACEs are associated with parenting behaviors that can lead to child abuse. The investigators define unhealthy parenting behaviors such as spanking, threatening, yelling, and humiliation. For adults in the original ACEs study, it was exposure to these behaviors that led to the categorization of child abuse/neglect and that were associated with heart disease, obesity, depression, smoking, drug use, violence, and many other problems. This study may help change policy and practice related to mitigating ACEs in primary care. To accomplish this goal, randomized controlled trials are needed to test brief screening tools and evidence-based resources. A population-based approach is needed to reach all parents (i.e. primary prevention). In the study, parents in the intervention group will receive 3 minutes of education about healthy discipline strategies.