Texting Dads Into Play: New Study Tests a Father-Focused Parenting Program Delivered by SMS

Fathers of young children have long been an afterthought in parenting science. Programs that teach parents how to manage challenging behaviour in the preschool years are among the most effective tools in child mental health, yet most are designed, advertised, scheduled and evaluated in ways that quietly exclude men. A new open-access study in the Journal of Child and Family Studies takes that problem head-on. Researchers at the University of Newcastle in Australia report on DadPlay, a free, text-message-based parenting intervention built specifically for fathers of children aged three to five, and tested in real-world community settings across several Australian states.

The study, led by Jennifer M. StGeorge with Emily E. Freeman and Linda E. Campbell, evaluated DadPlay across four dimensions of feasibility drawn from Bowen and colleagues’ framework: Demand, Acceptability, Implementation and Perceived Impact. The framework was chosen for its explicit focus on real-world delivery, and it was complemented by the CAPE model of parental engagement, which traces a parent’s journey from first connection with a program through attendance, participation and, ultimately, enactment of new parenting strategies in daily life. Together, the two frameworks allowed the team to dissect not just whether fathers liked DadPlay, but precisely where in the pipeline of engagement they arrived, stayed or dropped out.

The theoretical architecture of DadPlay reflects a careful reading of what shapes fathering behaviour. According to ecological models of father-child relationships, fathering emerges from interacting individual, social and societal factors that produce the cognitions, attitudes and activities which then shape child outcomes. In Australia, as across many Western democracies, social expectations for warm, involved, nurturing fathers are rising, but that cultural shift is slow. Hegemonic masculine norms of self-sufficiency and emotional restraint can make seeking parenting help feel culturally uncomfortable for some men, sitting uneasily beside dominant scripts of masculine competence. At the same time, research on father identity shows that many men hold strong commitments to being a good father, and that this identity can be a powerful motivational resource. DadPlay was designed to leverage that identity rather than fight the stigma: it framed support as a way for men to become better fathers, not as remediation for failing ones.

Two behaviour-change theories informed the program’s design. The Reasoned Action Approach holds that change occurs when interventions shift intentions, build skills and reduce environmental constraints. Social cognitive theory, meanwhile, points to self-efficacy as the engine of sustained behaviour change, built through modelling, verbal persuasion and opportunities for mastery. DadPlay operationalised both mechanisms through its medium. Each father enrolled in the program received 50 text messages over three months, roughly four per week, each a short one-to-three-sentence unit of about 60 characters. The brevity was deliberate, applying information-processing principles of chunking to reduce cognitive load, and most messages ended with a specific behavioural prompt to encourage immediate enactment. Videos demonstrated the skills, converting modelling into a pocket-sized format that required no appointment, no waiting room and no admission that anything was wrong.

The content itself was developed through a staged, iterative process. Fifty-four draft messages, grounded in research on early childhood behaviour, father-child relationships, father engagement and rough-and-tumble play, were reviewed for importance, clarity and acceptability by 30 clinicians and content experts spanning child and family psychology, family relationship services and early childhood education. Anything rated low on importance was cut; everything else was edited and then subjected to a second qualitative review. The final set of 48 messages covered four domains: child development, focused on the two core school-readiness skills most open to parenting influence, emotion regulation and behavioural inhibition; the father’s role, emphasising warm responsiveness, modelling self-regulation and self-care; co-parenting, worded inclusively for separated, same-sex, transgender and father-figure parenting partnerships; and games. One message told fathers: ‘Spending time playing with your child will help them to develop and learn.’ Another explained: ‘My brain lets information in from many of my senses all day Dad. Watch this video to see how different brains work to process all this input!’

The games deserve particular attention, because they encode the program’s most distinctive scientific claim. Vigorous, physical, big-body play between father and child contributes to the development of the prefrontal cortex, the brain region housing networks for emotion regulation and behavioural inhibition. Each DadPlay game was selected or adapted from existing programs and books to embody four characteristics: interactivity and physical father-child contact; gentle competition, of the ‘I’m the strongest’ variety; fun and novelty; and no more than everyday risk, allowing dads to practise setting limits. A 13-member reference group of family service professionals and fathering academics rated each game on whether it was playful, pushed children’s limits, inspired competition, allowed limit-setting and created connection. Volunteer fathers and their children then played the games on camera, and professional videography produced demonstration clips with embedded safety and wind-down guidance.

So what happened when the program met the real world? The demand data revealed a striking asymmetry. Of approximately 340 organisations approached, from family charities to preschools in regional, rural and remote areas, 57 percent agreed to disseminate information, and service providers proved enthusiastic, with 93 percent of those rating a one-week professional ‘taster’ judging the messages ‘just what I thought’ or ‘way better’. Yet organisational enthusiasm did not automatically become father engagement. Of 325 parents submitting expressions of interest, 108 fathers completed enrolment and 96 finished the 12-week program, a conversion rate the authors characterise as modest relative to the administrative effort involved. Engagement among those who did enrol was strong: 581 clicks on the ten further-information links, high response rates to in-program feedback, with 84 to 96 percent of responding fathers rating messages as ‘great’, and spontaneous text replies such as ‘Experienced that moment last night, so great timings.’

Implementation findings were equally instructive. Reach was vast, mapped using the Modified Monash Model and indices of socio-economic disadvantage to target rural and remote communities, but most fathers who ultimately enrolled provided metropolitan postcodes, suggesting that network breadth rarely guarantees penetration into underserved communities. Every successful cold contact required at least two phone calls and two emails, and the promotional video’s 5,000-plus public views offered only a partial indicator of dissemination efficiency. The authors argue this points to a fundamental implementation lesson: securing organisational buy-in and engaging fathers are distinct tasks requiring different strategies. Organisations functioned more as passive dissemination channels than as active referral systems, and the researchers suggest future iterations should embed the program as an organisation’s working ‘curriculum’ with dads, supported by professionals embedded in the systems they hope to change.

Perceived impact data were limited by a very low post-program response rate, with only 13 fathers completing the six-item questionnaire, but the signal was promising and theoretically coherent. All responding fathers agreed DadPlay helped them feel more supported and helped their relationship with their child; ten of thirteen perceived an improved bond and ten perceived greater confidence, with mean improvement ratings of around 65 on a 100-point scale. These self-efficacy gains mirror qualitative findings from SMS4dads, the earlier text-based program on which DadPlay was modelled, and align precisely with Bandura’s mechanisms of modelling and mastery. Free-text comments described DadPlay as a helpful reminder to play, a source of reassurance and encouragement, with requests for better mapping of games to child capability. Given that every dollar invested in parenting interventions may save up to thirty dollars in downstream social service costs, the economics of getting father engagement right are compelling.

The study’s limitations are candidly acknowledged. No formal screening for child behavioural difficulties occurred at enrolment, the analytic sample of 63 fathers skewed metropolitan, tertiary-educated and financially comfortable, and the program never reached its priority populations of rural, remote and low-income fathers. Yet the central conclusion stands clear: implementation challenges stemmed from recruitment and dissemination processes, not from the program’s content, which fathers found highly acceptable. The authors call for a further trial incorporating behavioural screening, formal progression criteria, retention strategies and recruitment pathways deeply embedded within partner organisations. More broadly, the findings suggest that scaling father-focused digital interventions will require genuine co-creation with fathers, professionals and organisations, and a willingness to meet men at the point where their own identity as a good father becomes the strongest invitation to engage.

Subject of Research: Feasibility of an SMS-delivered father-focused parenting intervention for fathers of young children

Article Title: Feasibility, Development and Dissemination of a Father Focused Parenting Intervention, DadPlay

Article References: StGeorge, J. M., Freeman, E. E., & Campbell, L. E. (2026). Feasibility, Development and Dissemination of a Father Focused Parenting Intervention, DadPlay. Journal of Child and Family Studies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-026-03367-1

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s10826-026-03367-1

Keywords: DadPlay, fathers, parenting intervention, mHealth, SMS text messages, early childhood, child behaviour, rough-and-tumble play, father engagement, feasibility study, self-efficacy, co-parenting