Parenting skills for family support for child development in the Cañar canton. Methodological guidelines

Competencias parentales para el acompañamiento familiar al desarrollo infantil en el cantón Cañar. Pautas metodológicas

Abstract

Parents and/or caregivers of infants need to develop skills to support their child's upbringing. A lack of or ignorance of these so-called parenting skills can lead to stressful parenting. This article allows, in the first instance, to know the diagnosis of the parental competencies that parents of infants from 3 to 5 years old have in the Cañar canton in Ecuador, through the collection of quantitative information carried out with the "Positive Parenting Scale" (E2P), developed and validated by the Ideas for Children Foundation (FIPI) of Chile, in a population of 30 representatives in this rural canton, this non-probabilistic convenience sample is based on field research with a descriptive scope, it is worth mentioning that the results allow to establish the existing preliminary sample diagnosis on four competencies evaluated in the applied scale: the competencies of bonding, training, protection and reflection, as well as the determination of the most frequent behaviors related to the competencies and roles of parents in relation to the upbringing and contributions to the development of their children. It is concluded that qualitative studies are urgently needed to address the need to train parents and/or caregivers in parenting skills. To this end, methodological guidelines are put forward to foster these skills.