Texting Parents about Early Child Development : Behavioral Changes and Unintended Social Effects

Parenting interventions have the potential to improve early childhood development. Text messages are considered a promising channel to deliver parenting information at large scale. This paper tests whether sending text messages about parenting prac...

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Main Authors:	Barrera, Oscar, Macours, Karen, Premand, Patrick, Vakis, Renos
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2020
Subjects:	EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT PARENTING BEHAVIOR CHANGE HEALTH SERVICE DELIVERY
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/605381607538581261/Texting-Parents-about-Early-Child-Development-Behavioral-Changes-and-Unintended-Social-Effects http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34914

id	okr-10986-34914
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-349142022-09-20T00:09:57Z Texting Parents about Early Child Development : Behavioral Changes and Unintended Social Effects Barrera, Oscar Macours, Karen Premand, Patrick Vakis, Renos EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT PARENTING BEHAVIOR CHANGE HEALTH SERVICE DELIVERY Parenting interventions have the potential to improve early childhood development. Text messages are considered a promising channel to deliver parenting information at large scale. This paper tests whether sending text messages about parenting practices impacts early childhood development. Households in rural Nicaragua were randomly assigned to receive messages about nutrition, health, stimulation, or the home environment. The intervention led to significant changes in self-reported parenting practices. However, it did not translate into improvements in children's cognitive development. When local opinion leaders were randomly exposed to the same text message intervention, parental investments declined and children's outcomes deteriorated. Since interactions between parents and leaders about child development also decreased, the negative effects may have resulted from a crowding-out of some local leaders. 2020-12-10T15:56:33Z 2020-12-10T15:56:33Z 2020-12 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/605381607538581261/Texting-Parents-about-Early-Child-Development-Behavioral-Changes-and-Unintended-Social-Effects http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34914 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9492 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Latin America & Caribbean Nicaragua
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT PARENTING BEHAVIOR CHANGE HEALTH SERVICE DELIVERY
spellingShingle	EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT PARENTING BEHAVIOR CHANGE HEALTH SERVICE DELIVERY Barrera, Oscar Macours, Karen Premand, Patrick Vakis, Renos Texting Parents about Early Child Development : Behavioral Changes and Unintended Social Effects
geographic_facet	Latin America & Caribbean Nicaragua
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9492
description	Parenting interventions have the potential to improve early childhood development. Text messages are considered a promising channel to deliver parenting information at large scale. This paper tests whether sending text messages about parenting practices impacts early childhood development. Households in rural Nicaragua were randomly assigned to receive messages about nutrition, health, stimulation, or the home environment. The intervention led to significant changes in self-reported parenting practices. However, it did not translate into improvements in children's cognitive development. When local opinion leaders were randomly exposed to the same text message intervention, parental investments declined and children's outcomes deteriorated. Since interactions between parents and leaders about child development also decreased, the negative effects may have resulted from a crowding-out of some local leaders.
format	Working Paper
author	Barrera, Oscar Macours, Karen Premand, Patrick Vakis, Renos
author_facet	Barrera, Oscar Macours, Karen Premand, Patrick Vakis, Renos
author_sort	Barrera, Oscar
title	Texting Parents about Early Child Development : Behavioral Changes and Unintended Social Effects
title_short	Texting Parents about Early Child Development : Behavioral Changes and Unintended Social Effects
title_full	Texting Parents about Early Child Development : Behavioral Changes and Unintended Social Effects
title_fullStr	Texting Parents about Early Child Development : Behavioral Changes and Unintended Social Effects
title_full_unstemmed	Texting Parents about Early Child Development : Behavioral Changes and Unintended Social Effects
title_sort	texting parents about early child development : behavioral changes and unintended social effects
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2020
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/605381607538581261/Texting-Parents-about-Early-Child-Development-Behavioral-Changes-and-Unintended-Social-Effects http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34914
_version_	1764481923562864640

Texting Parents about Early Child Development : Behavioral Changes and Unintended Social Effects

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