The first years of life have long-term impacts on children’s development across language, cognitive, social-emotional, and motor domains, yet evidence on critical parent-young child interactions in low-income settings is scarce. A cluster randomized control trial in Rwanda compared the outcomes of light-touch and full-intervention 17-week courses on parenting skills and child development for families with children aged 6–36 months. The results revealed that children in the light-touch and full-intervention groups scored significantly higher on early childhood development scales across all domains than the control group.