Parents will be instructed to bring the completed questionnaires with them to the university lab. Then, in the lab, parents will be observed interacting with their child. Following these baseline conditions, half of the parents will receive the "micro" parenting intervention-in the form of individual positive feedback concerning their parenting and their child's behavior.

Participants in the care-as-usual control condition receive no immediate positive parenting feedback but will also be taken aside without their child, receiving only the instructions of the experiment.

Individual positive feedback concerning their parenting and their child's behavior.

This 25-item scale is related to five domain-specific SEB factors: Discipline, Nurturance, Playing, Instrumental Care, and Teaching. Self-efficacy beliefs in parenting can be evaluated as a quantitative construct by asking parents their beliefs in specific parenting activities, such as teaching, playing, providing instrumental care, nurturing or disciplining their child. Items are in the form of affirmatives, for example: ''I am able to sense when my child is starting to become distressed'' for the Nurturance subscale. The items will be rated on a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree).

This questionnaire consists of 25 items and comprises five subscales: Positive parenting (e.g., "I make time to listen to my child, when he/she wants to tell me something"), Discipline (e.g., "When my child has been disobedient, I give him/her a chore as punishment"), Harsh Punishment (e.g., "I spank my child when he/she is disobedient or naughty"), Material Rewarding (e.g., "I give my child candy as a reward for good behavior"), and Rule Setting (e.g., "I teach my child to be polite at school"). A 5-point scale is provided for each item, ranging from 1 = (almost) never to 5 = (almost) always.

The Crowell observation task takes 20 minutes to complete and consists of four episodes: warm-up, free play, frustration task, and recovery time. The parent scales (i.e., positive affect, autonomy support, negative affect, withdrawal, controlling behavior and laxness/inconsistent) are each internally consistent and well-defined conceptually. High internal consistency for each scale provides support for the reliability of the rating scale, and suggests that the Crowell scores can be useful as scale to measure caregiver responsiveness, but also collectively as a total score assessing overall relational functioning.

One subscale assessing the degree to which child externalizing problem is a problem from the 36-item Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory (ECBI) will be used to assess the occurrence of child externalizing problem behavior. This "Intensity" subscale measures frequency of externalizing behavior in children aged 2 to 16 years and has been shown to be a reliable (screening) instrument (3). Example items are: "Does not obey house rules" and "Whines."