Abstract

GARCIA, Fabiana Halberstadt; FARAJ, Suane Pastoriza  and  SIQUEIRA, Aline Cardoso. Parents’ perception of the use of the ACT Program during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rev. Subj. [online]. 2024, vol.24, n.3, e14098.  Epub Mar 09, 2026. ISSN 2359-0769.  https://doi.org/10.5020/23590777.rs.v24i3.e14098.

Parenting skills improvement programs have been used as a strategy to prevent violence against children, helping parents acquire knowledge and forms of education through positive parenting. The ACT Program was developed by the American Psychological Association for parents and caregivers of children ages 0 to 8, and it seeks to empower families to improve their parenting skills. This qualitative study aimed to understand the perception of parents participating in the ACT Program, carried out in 2019, regarding the program’s learning use during the COVID-19 pandemic. Semi-structured online interviews were conducted with 15 parents who participated in the ACT Program in 2021. The data were analyzed qualitatively, and the results indicated that parents used strategies of emotional regulation, positive discipline, and monitoring of the use of electronic media. Learning about the quality, content, and time children spend with electronic media was cited as crucial when screen time increased due to the pandemic. Based on the participants’ reports, it is considered that the ACT Program helped manage the situations faced during the pandemic since the strategies used by parents were aligned with the objectives of the ACT Program. The results also give the ACT Program external validity since learning was maintained after two years of intervention and in a natural environment. Therefore, it becomes necessary to offer violence prevention programs to parents and caregivers.

Keywords : violence; intervention; parenting skills training; prevention.

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