The study, carried out by the Centre for Community Child Health in Melbourne and published in the British Medical Journal, surveyed 700 mothers of eight-month-old babies, half of whom took part in parenting programmes and half who didn't.
After two years, mothers taking part in the programmes were less likely to report harsh parenting or unreasonable expectations of child development, but there was no improvement in maternal stress or toddler behaviour.
Mary McLeod, chief executive of the Family & Parenting Institute, said the findings were a useful contribution to the debate about the work of parenting programmes.
"Evidence suggests parenting programmes work as part of a package of intervention," she said. "But we need to know much more about what works for whom in what circumstances and that is what the National Academy for Parenting Practitioners will be addressing, both in doing new research on effectiveness but also in bringing together the evidence from the UK and abroad."
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