JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting

Low birth weight (LBW) is associated with increased risks of neonatal morbidity, developmental delays, and long-term health problems. Although baby massages have been shown to improve growth and neurodevelopmental outcomes in LBW infants, access to suitable training and adherence to massage protocols remain challenging, particularly in low-resource settings. Mobile health interventions may help address these gaps by providing scalable and standardized education on infant massage.

Injury is the leading cause of death among US children, with over 2700 deaths due to unintentional injuries among children aged <6 years in 2023. Many of these deaths occur in the home and involve addressable safety hazards. Evidence-based parenting programs (EBPPs), in which parents work with a provider to learn parenting skills, offer an infrastructure for disseminating home safety content. However, few programs have structured modules on home safety, with most home safety education coming from printed materials or websites. Immersive virtual reality (IVR) allows participants to engage in activities in a simulated, risk-free environment. IVR’s technological affordances create a training environment that supports experiential learning and helps learners internalize and transfer knowledge more effectively to real-world situations.

Greater caregiver knowledge of early language development may support more reciprocal interactions with infants and improved child language outcomes. Short-form video interventions on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok could be a scalable, cost-effective way to increase caregiver knowledge.

Toilet training is a major challenge for children with autism spectrum disorder. While mobile health offers accessible support, few apps specifically address the complex chaining required for independent toileting routines.

Childhood asthma places substantial burdens on caregivers, particularly in communities facing structural barriers to health care access. Patient portals, the patient-facing component of electronic health record systems, are primarily designed for clinical workflows, limiting their usefulness for caregivers managing their child’s asthma.

Parents’ feeding practices play a role in shaping children’s dietary patterns, which influence chronic disease risk. Feeding children is challenging, so parents need guidance and support. Parents In Child Nutrition Informing Community (PICNIC) is an Australian program that promotes responsive child feeding using dietitian-led training and online communication, then facilitates peer-to-peer information sharing within parents’ social networks.

Digital interventions offer a promising avenue for scalable parenting support in low- and middle-income countries, where in-person coverage remains limited. However, engagement disparities may reduce their potential for population-level impact.

Assistant teachers play a central role in supporting children with autism spectrum disorder in United Arab Emirates inclusive classrooms. Despite this importance, no prior study has used validated observational instruments to systematically evaluate assistant teachers’ competency profiles across classroom practice and parent interaction domains simultaneously in this cultural context.

The Asia-Pacific region faces an escalating double burden of malnutrition, with childhood obesity now affecting more than 113 million children aged 0‐19 years. A demographic of highly educated, digitally literate urban mothers—referred to in this study using the descriptive label “Alpha Mother”—increasingly draws on generative AI as a source of toddler nutrition information. Yet, whether this shift empowers or undermines quality feeding practices remains empirically untested.

Research on children’s media use has traditionally focused on risks and negative outcomes. However, screen-based media may also provide opportunities for learning and curiosity-driven exploration. As young children increasingly engage with digital media within family contexts, parental media literacy may represent an important competency associated with children’s media experiences and developmental outcomes.

Despite evidence showing that parenting interventions reduce rates of child mental health problems, their reach and engagement remain low. Daily Growth is a digital parenting program designed to improve parent and child emotion regulation using an ecological momentary intervention (EMI) approach. Daily Growth sends twice-daily prompts and delivers 3-minute videos tailored to a recent parenting situation, offering 2 program types (Emotion Coaching and Active Play) to meet different parent preferences. EMI has rarely been tested with parenting programs.

The Strong Families (SF) Program, developed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, is an evidence-informed family skills intervention designed to support caregivers and children in low-resourced, high-stress circumstances. Following a pilot phase, we revised the program materials according to the expert trainers’ suggestions to best reflect the needs of the target population.