Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-20-2025
Abstract
Introduction: Parents play a vital role in supporting self-regulation and managing behaviors in children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). However, many face barriers to accessing consistent, evidence-based support. Mobile health (mHealth) technologies offer a promising way to deliver flexible, low-burden guidance for parents on best practices and strategies to support their children's self-regulation. However, designing them is non-trivial.
Objective: This paper introduces ParentCoach, a mobile application designed to support parents of children with ADHD through brief daily lessons, reflection prompts, and skill-building activities.
Methods: ParentCoach was developed in two phases: (1) secondary analysis of qualitative data from over 30 families using mHealth tools to support self-regulation, and (2) co-design with ADHD experts to refine and validate the curriculum.
Results: Our findings identify key design needs for digital parenting tools: micro-interactions, flexible content formats, scaffolding for executive function, and emotional reflection. The resulting app delivers an 80-lesson curriculum across 16 weekly themes covering relational self-reflection, emotional regulation, communication, and behavior management.
Discussion: ParentCoach design and development show how evidence-based parenting strategies can be translated into accessible, scalable mHealth interventions. Our study offers key design implications for digital tools that support parent learning, emotional resilience, and behavioral consistency in the home. Currently, we are running a randomized controlled trial to provide evidence of ParentCoach's impact. This work contributes to ongoing efforts to develop technology-enhanced behavioral interventions for families of children with ADHD.
Recommended Citation
Cibrian FL, Herrera N, Beltran JA, Silva LM, Pulse M, Anderson K, Zeiler C, Arnold VX, Rieffel L, Lee DI, Schuck SEB and Lakes KD (2025) ParentCoach: designing an mHealth parenting app to enhance parental involvement in ADHD support. Front. Comput. Sci. 7:1694747. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomp.2025.1694747
Copyright
The authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Included in
Child Psychology Commons, Health Information Technology Commons, Maternal and Child Health Commons, Other Computer Engineering Commons, Other Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons, Other Mental and Social Health Commons
Comments
This article was originally published in Frontiers in Computer Science, volume 7, in 2025. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomp.2025.1694747