Cool Little Kids Online: A parenting program to increase young children’s confidence and prevent anxiety problems

INTERVENTION: Participants receive 10 weeks access to the Cool Little Kids Online website program. The program aims to help parents of shy young children who at risk of developing anxiety problems. The program has 8 interactive online modules containing a mix of written information, videos, audio narration, activities and parent experiential stories. The modules contain the same content as in the Cool Little Kids parenting group program developed by Rapee and colleagues. Modules take about 30 to 60 minutes to complete. Parents are advised to work at an ideal pace of one module per week, although they can choose to work at whichever pace suits them best. Just like the group parenting program, Cool Little Kids Online sets parents home practice tasks to work on with their child between modules. To encourage program adherence, participants receive emails upon completion of each module, half‐way through the program, and after 2 weeks of not logging in to the program. Two versions of the program are being evaluated: one is self‐guided, and the other is guided by a clinician. Participants allocated to the clinician arm will receive up to 2 support phone calls during the study, one after module 2 (or week 3) and one after module 5 (or week 6). CONDITION: Anxiety in young children PRIMARY OUTCOME: Child anxiety diagnoses as assessed with the Online Assessment of Preschool Anxiety Child anxiety symptoms as assessed with the Revised Preschool Anxiety Scale SECONDARY OUTCOME: Child internalising symptoms as assessed with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire – Emotional Symptoms Subscale Life interference from child anxiety, assessed with the Children's Anxiety Life Interference Scale (CALIS) adapted for preschool children Over‐protective parenting practices, as assessed with the Over‐involved/protective parenting scale Program satisfaction/acceptability, as assessed by a feedback questionnaire adapted from Bayer et al (2011), with additional questions designed specifically for this study, e.g. using Likert scales. ; Bayer, J. K., et al. (2011). The Cool Little Kids randomised controlled trial: Population‐level early prevention for anxiety disorders. BMC Public Health 11: 11. ; Program use/adherence as assessed by computer logs (modules accessed, number of logins) INCLUSION CRITERIA: 1. Parent of child aged between 3 and 6 years of age 2. Child is highly inhibited, as indicated by a score of 31 or more on the Short Temperament Scale for Children (STSC) – Approach subscale (Pedlow, Sanson, Prior, & Oberklaid, 1993; Prior, Sanson, & Oberklaid, 1989). 3. Access to the internet and a printer