Using Behavioral Insights to Increase Parental Engagement

Parental engagement plays a key role in children's future success. We implemented a behaviorally informed field experiment designed to increase the time parents spend using a digital library on an electronic tablet to read to their children. Behavioral tools-reminders, goal setting, and social rewards-more than doubled the amount of time parents spent reading using the electronic application (one standard deviation effect size) after the six-week intervention. The largest gains were for the most present-oriented parents. Our findings suggest substantial promise for the application of behavioral tools to parenting activities that promote investment in children's human capital.