In modern times, we strive for positive parenting, which encourages the promotion of healthy child development and the use of educational methods that do not include violent actions, i.e. corporal punishment. In modern society, parents have different roles and expectations, both of themselves and of their child. When these expectations are not met, the level of experienced stress may increase. In the context of parenting, we talk about parental stress. Chronic parental stress can have adverse consequences on the child's development, given that the parent is then unable to respond to the child's developmental and emotional needs in a quality and continuous manner. In order to reduce the levels of parental stress or cope with it better, parents seek various forms of support. Social support can be divided into informal and formal, whereby informal refers to support from relatives such as friends, neighbors, relatives and other forms, while formal support refers to organized forms of support, such as parenting support programs. In order to be effective, parenting support programs must respond to the specific needs of parents, which may be related to the age of the child, the culture of living and growing up, as well as the specific population of parents and children to which the program applies. The aim of this paper is to define the terms of parental stress and parenting support and to present the results of evaluation studies of parenting support programs with an emphasis on effectiveness in reducing parental stress. Parental stress was measured using standardized questionnaires for measuring parental stress at the beginning and at the end of the program, and in some studies the long-term effect was also measured so that parental stress was measured several months after the end of the program. It was shown that out of a total of 17 foreign and 3 domestic parenting support programs, 12 of them, i.e. 3 programs are effective in reducing parental stress