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Introduction Preventive parenting interventions are a cornerstone of child mental health promotion and prevention efforts, with growing evidence supporting their overall effectiveness. However, less is known about which specific intervention formats and core components are essential and most strongly associated with improved outcomes for children and parents. This protocol describes an umbrella review aimed at identifying core components of existing preventive parenting interventions that meet rigorous criteria for methodological quality and demonstrate effectiveness.Methods and analysis We will conduct an umbrella review of systematic reviews of preventive parenting interventions. Searches will be performed in MEDLINE, PsycINFO, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews using a predefined search strategy. Eligible reviews must: (1) be systematic reviews of randomised controlled, cluster randomised or quasi randomised trials; (2) examine preventive parenting interventions for parents of children aged 0–5 years; and (3) target child emotion regulation and/or emergent mental health problems (eg, internalising and externalising behaviour problems). Studies from all contexts will be included. Eligible studies are peer-reviewed, published in English and have been published from 2020 onwards.Study selection and data extraction will be conducted in duplicate, with disagreements resolved by a third reviewer. The methodological quality of eligible reviews will be assessed using A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews (AMSTAR-2), retaining only those rated as moderate to high quality. A codebook of programme content and techniques will be employed to distill practice components from effective interventions and to map these components to specific target groups (eg, universal, selective and indicated interventions, child age, internalising vs externalising problems). Intervention formats will be coded according to delivery mode (group vs individual, online vs physical, duration and number of sessions).Ethics and dissemination This review will provide new insights into which intervention formats and core components are consistently present across effective preventive parenting interventions, applying stricter criteria for identifying effectiveness than in previous research. Findings will inform researchers, clinicians and policymakers in the evidence-based development, selection, adaptation and implementation of preventive parenting interventions in diverse real-world contexts, contributing to more ethically responsible and evidence-based practices for families. Results will be submitted for publication to international peer-reviewed journals.PROSPERO registration number CRD420251087217.