Effectiveness of Mothers'Mindful Parenting on Emotional Regulation, Secure Child-Parent Attachment, and Aggression in Preschool Children

Subject Areas : روان درمانگری

Elahe Aslami ¹ , Akram Malekzadeh ² , Nasrin Pirmoradian ³

1 - Department of Psychology, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran
2 - Department of Psychology, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran
3 - f Educational Psychology, Payame Noor University, Khorameh Branch, Fars, Iran

Received: 2023-06-15 Accepted : 2023-06-15 Published : 2023-03-21

Keywords: aggression, Emotional regulation, mindfulness parenting, secure child-parent attachment,

Abstract :

This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of mothers’ mindful parenting training on emotional regulation, secure child-parent attachment, and aggression of their preschool children. The research was quasi-experimental with a pretest, posttest, and follow-up design with a control group. The statistical population included all mothers with preschool children in Isfahan in the academic year 2019-20, from which 50 people were selected by stage random sampling and randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. The research instruments included Aggression Scale for Preschoolers (Vahedi, Fathiazar, Hosseini-Nasab & Moghaddam, 2008), Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC) (Shields and Cicchetti, 1997) and Kinship Center Attachment Questionnaire (Kappenberg & Halpern, 2006). The experimental group then received Boggles  and Rastifo protocol (2014) in 8 sessions of 90 minutes of mindful parenting protocol. The obtained data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance. The results showed that mothers’ mindful parenting training increased adaptive emotional regulation and secure attachment and decreased the instability of emotional regulation and aggression in their children. However, in the follow-up phase (5 months after the intervention), no significant difference was observed between the variables of the two groups, which can confirm the reholding of these courses in short intervals for parents. The findings of this research highlight the necessity of applying mindful parenting training programs to mothers in order to improve parent-child attachment relationships, and emotional regulation and reduce aggression in preschool children.

References:

Abdalmaleki, M. (2018). The effectiveness of play ther- apy and music therapy on aggression in preschool children. Master Thesis, Payame Noor University of Hamadan, Payame Noor Center Kaboudar Ahang. [In Persian].
Aliakbari Dehkordi, M. (2017). Developmental psychol- ogy (theories, researches and tests). Tehran: Payam Noor University Publications. [In Persian].
Andersen, B. L., Farrar, W. B., Golden-Kreutz, D., Em- ery, C. F., Glaser, R., Crespin, T., & Carson III, W. E. (2007). Distress reduction from a psychological intervention contributes to improved health for can- cer patients. Brain, behavior, and immunity, 21(7), .953-961
Arslan, E. (2021). Investigation of pre-school childrens’ self-concept in terms of emotion regulation skill, behavior and emotional status. Annals of Psycholo- gy, 37(3),508-515.
Bar-On, R., & Parker, J. D. A. (2000). Bar-On Emotion- al Quotient Inventory: Youth version. Toronto, ON, Canada: Multi-Health system, Incorporated.
Baumeister, R. F., Sparks, E. A., Stillman, T. F., & Vohs, K. D. (2008). Free will in consumer behavior: Self‐ control, ego depletion, and choice. Journal of Con- sumer Psychology, 18(1), 4-13.
Bandarkakhki, Z. (2018). Evaluating the effectiveness of mindful parenting program on reducing paren- tal stress, improving mother-child interaction, and cognitive regulation of maternal emotion and exec- utive activity. Master Thesis, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Faculty of Educational Sciences and Psy- chology. [In Persian].
Bashkoi, A. (2017). The effectiveness of group mindful- ness therapy on symptoms of depression, emotional malaise and emotion regulation in students. Master Thesis, Kurdistan University, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. [In Persian].
Behbahani, M., Zargar, F., Assarian, F., & Akbari, H. (2018). Effects of mindful parenting training on clinical symptoms in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and parenting stress: Rand- 318 omized Controlled Trial. Iranian Journal of Medical Sciences, 43, 596–604. [In Persian].
Fallah-tafti, N. (2015). The effectiveness of mindful parenting education on reducing parent-child con- flict and mothers’ perceived stress. Master Thesis, Kharazmi University, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences. [In Persian].
Fard, F., Pakdaman, Sh., & Minaei, A. (2021). The Ef- fectiveness of training the mindfulness-based par- enting and Adler based democratic parenting on increasing the psychological well-being in mothers. Journal of Developmental Psychology: Iranian Psy- chologists, 18(69), 37- 50. [In Persian].
Farzad, F. S., & Houman, H. (2008). The role of child rearing training skills in reducing mothers stress and children’s behavioral problems. Journal of Transfor- mational Psychology, 4(15), 277-292. [In Persian].
Fazli, N., & Sajjadian, I. (2017). The effectiveness of mindful parenting education on child behavior’s problems and parenting stress among mothers with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.Knowledge & Research in Applied Psychology, 17(3), 26-35. [In Persian].
Futh, A., O’connor, T. G., Matias, C., Green, J., & Scott, S. (2008). Attachment narratives and behavioral and emotional symptoms in an ethnically diverse, at-risk sample. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 47(6), 709-718.
Ghorbanpour, M. (2016). Investigating the role of moth- er cognitive dimensions on the formation of secure attachment of preschool children in Shirvan. Master Thesis, Faculty of Educational Sciences and Psy- chology, Al-Zahra University. [In Persian].
Gouveia, M., Carona, C., Canavarro, M., & Moreira, H. (2017). Self-compassion and dispositional mindful- ness are associated with parenting styles and parent- ing stress: The mediating role of mindful parenting. Mindfulness, 7(3), 700-712.
Greenberg, M. T. (1999). Attachment and psychopa- thology in childhood. In J. Cassidy & P. R. Shaver (Eds.). Handbook of attachment: Theory, research and clinical applications. New York: Guilford Press.
Groh, A. M., Fearon, R. P., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., Van IJzendoorn, M. H., Steele, R. D., & Roisman, G. I. (2014). The significance of attachment secu- rity for children’s social competence with peers: A
psychology, 9, 1443.
Crick, N. R., Casas, J. F., & Mosher, M. (1997). Rela- tional and overt aggression in preschool. Develop- mental psychology, 33(4), 579–588.
Cuijpers, P. (2013). How much psychotherapy is needed to treat depression? A metaregression analysis. Jour- nal of Affective Disorders, 49(1–3), 1–13.
Denham, S. A. (1998). Emotional development in young children. New York: Guil-ford Press.
Dodge, K. A., Coie, J. D., & Lynam, D. (2007). Aggres- sion and antisocial behavior in youth. In W. Damon, D. Kuhn & R. S. Siegler (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology, Vol. 3 (pp. 719-788). New Jersey: Willy.
Dumas, J. E. (2005). Mindfulness-based parent train- ing: Strategies to lessen the grip of automaticity in families with disruptive children. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 4, 779-791.
Duncan, L.G. (2007). Assessment of mindful parenting among parents of early adolescents: Development andvalidation of the Interpersonal Mindfulness in Parenting Scale. The PennsylvaniaState University: Unpublished dissertation.
Duncan, G. J., Claessens, A., Huston, A. J., Pagani, L. S., Engel, M., Sex-ton, H., Dowsett, C. J., Magnu- son, K., Klebanov, P., Feinstein, L., Brooks-Gunn, J., Duckworth, K., & Japel, K. (2007). School readiness and later achievement. Developmental psychology, .1446–1428 ,)6(43
Duncan, L. G., Coatsworth, J. D., & Greenberg, M. T. (2009). A model of mindful parenting: Implica- tionsfor parent-child relationships and prevention research. Clinical Child and Family Psychologyre- view, 12, 255-270.
Esmailian, N., Dehghani, M., & Fallah, S. (2016). Evaluating the psychometric features of Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC) in children and sdoles- cents.Achievements of Clinical Psychology,2(1), 15-34. [In Persian].
Evans, S., Bhide, S., Quek, J., Nicholson, J. M., Ander- son, V., Hazell, P., & Sciberras, E. (2020). Mindful parenting behaviors and emotional self-regulation in children with ADHD and controls. Journal of Pedi- atric Psychology, 45(9), 1074-1083.
Leichsenring, F., & Rabung, S. (2011). Long-term psy- chodynamic psychotherapy in complex mental dis- orders: Update of a meta-analysis. The British Jour- nal of Psychiatry, 199(1), 15-22.
Leschied, A. W., Chiodo, D., Whitehead, P. C., & Hur- ley, D. (2005). The relationship between maternal depression and child outcomes in a child welfare sample: Implications for treatment and policy. Child & Family Social Work, 10(4), 281-291.
Lilienfeld, S. O. (2007). Psychological treatments that cause harm. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2(1),53-70.
Mahmoudi, M., Borjali, A., Alizadeh, H., Ghobari-Bon- ab, B., Ekhtiari, H., & Akbari-Zardkhaneh, S. (2016). Emotion regulation in children with learning disorders and normal children. Research in School and Virtual Learning, 4(13), 69–84. [In Persian].
Medeiros, C., Gouveia, M., Canavarro, M., & Moreira, H. (2016). The indirect effect of the mindful parent- ing of mothers and fathers on the child’s perceived well-being through the child’s attachment to parents. Mindfulness, 7, 916–927.
Molina, P., Sala, M. N., Zappulla, C., Bonfigliuoli, C., Cavioni, V., Zanetti, M. A., ... & Cicchetti, D. (2014). The Emotion Regulation Checklist–Italian translation: Validation of parent and teacher ver- sions. European Journal of Developmental Psychol- ogy, 11(5),624-634.
Mousavi Amirabad, Z., & Nazarimoghadam, P. (2019). Effectiveness of positive parenting skills training on social competence and emotion regulation in stu- dent. Rooyesh, 8(10), 39-46. [In Persian].
Mozdzierz, G. J., Peluso, P. R., & Lisiecki, J. (2014). Ad- vanced principles of counseling and psychotherapy: Learning, integrating, and consolidating the nonlin- ear thinking of master practitioners. New York, NY: Routledge
Nadali, H., Besharat, M. A., Rostami, R., & Bahrami Ehsan, H. (2016). The effectiveness of mother-child attachment-based intervention in enhancing pre- schoolers’ attachment security. Journal of Develop- mental Psychology: Iranian Psychologists, 12(48), 343-354. [In Persian].
Goldsmith, H. H., Pollak, S. D., & Davidson, R. J.
meta-analytic study. Attachment & Human Develop- ment, 16(2), 103-136.
Groh, A. M., Roisman, G. I., van IJzendoorn, M. H., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., & Fearon, R. P. (2012). The significance of insecure and disorgan- ized attachment for children’s internalizing symp- toms: a meta-analytic study. Child Development, .610–591,)2(83
Ha, J. H., & Jue, J. (2018). The mediating effect of emotion inhibition and emotion regulation be- tween adolescents’ perceived parental psycho- logical control and depression. Sage Open, 8(3), .2158244018793680
Han, Z. R., Ahemaitijiang, N., Yan, J., Hu, X., Parent, J., & Dale, C., et al. (2019). Parent mindfulness, parent- ing, and child psychopathology in China. Mindful- ness, 12, 334-343.
Hojati, M., Ghadampoor, E., Abbasi, M., & Senobar, A. (2020). Children behavioral disorders and mothers’ stress: The mediating role of fatigue and coping strat- egies. Journal of Developmental Psychology: Irani- an Psychologists, 16 (62), 215-228. [In Persian].
Hyson, M. (2004). The emotional development of young children: Building an emotion-centered curriculum. 2. Baskı, New York: Teachers College Press.
Jameshi, B. (2017). Investigating the effect of story ther- apy on creativity and reducing aggression in chil- dren with learning disabilities in Kharameh. Master Thesis, Islamic Azad University, Arsanjan Branch. [In Persian].
Kappenberg, E. S., & Halpern, D. F. (2006). Kinship Center Attachment Questionnaire: Development of a caregiver-completed attachment measure for laten- cy-aged for children. Educational and Psychologi- cal Measurement, 66(5), 852-873.
Karimi Ivanaki, M., Seyed Mousavi, P., & Tahmasian, K. (2019). The effectiveness of parent-child relation- ship therapy on self-efficacy and mother-child rela- tionship. Journal of Developmental Psychology: Ira- nian Psychologists, 15(60), 391- 401. [In Persian].
Ladd, G. W., & Burgess, K. B. (1999). Charting the re- lationship trajectories of aggressive, withdrawn, and aggressive/withdrawn children during early grade 320 school. Child Development, 70(4), 910-929.
intervention,andpolicy.NewYork:GuilfordPress.
Soleimani, H., Bashash, L., & Latifiyan, M. (2014). Psychometric properties of the kinship center at- tachment questionnaire (KCAQ) of latency-aged for children. Psychological Methods and Models, 4 (16), 41-63. [In Persian].
Sroufe, L. A., Egeland, B., Carlson, E. A., & Collins, W. A. (2005). The development of the person. The Minnesota study of risk and adaptation. New York: Guildford Press.
Sroufe, L. A. (2005). Attachment and development: A prospective, longitudinal study from birth to adult- hood. Attachment & Human Development, 7(4), .349-367
Tabaeh-Emami, Sh. (2012). The effectiveness of attach- ment style education to mothers on various behav- iors of 3- to 5-year-old children in Isfahan. PhD Dessertation in Psychology. University of Esfahan. [In Persian].
Tabakhnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2007). Using multi- variate statistics. Boston: Allyn & Bocon.
Townshend, K., Jordan, Z., Stephenson, M., & Tsey, K. (2017). The effectiveness of mindful parenting programs in promoting parents’ and children’s well- being: A systematic review. Joanna Briggs Institute database of systematic reviews and implementation reports, 14(3), 139-80.
Tremblay, R. E., Côté, S. M., Salla, J., & Michel, G. (2017). The development of aggression from ear- ly childhood to adulthood. In P. Sturmey (Ed.) The wiley handbook of violence and aggression (pp.1- 12). New Jersey: Willy.
Vahedi, Sh., Fathiazar S., Hosseini-Nasab, S. D., & Moghaddam, M. (2008). Validity and reliabili- ty of the Aggression Scale for Preschoolers and assessment of aggression in preschool children in Uromia. Journal of Fundamentals of Mental Health, 10(37),15-24. [In Persian].
Waters, E., & Deane, K. E. (1985). Defining and as- sessing individual differences in attachment Rela- tionships: Q-Methodology and the Organization of Behavior in Infancy and Early childhood. Mono- graphs of the Society for Research in Child Develop- ment, 50(1/2),41–65.
(2008). Developmental neuroscience perspectives on emotion regulation. Child Development Perspec- tives, 2(3),132-140.
Oppenheim, D., & Koren-Karie, N. (2017). Mothers’ insightfulness regarding their children’s internal worlds: The capacity underlying secure child-moth- er relationships. Infant Mental Health Journal, .605–593,)6(23
Pourhaydari, S., Bassaknejad, S., Davoodi, I., & Meh- rabizade Honarmand, M. (2017). Comparing effec- tiveness of positive parenting and mindfulness on healthy mother-child and sibling relationship in fam- ilies with an ADHD child. Journal of Applied Psy- chology, 11(2), 7-26. [In Persian].
Saedi, F., & Aghdasi, A., N. (2018). The relationship be- tween three attachment styles with depression and anxiety between seventh and eighth grade female students in Tabriz city. Journal of Woman and Study of Family, 11(40), 165-189. [In Persian].
Schäfer, J. Ö., Naumann, E., Holmes, E. A., Tus- chen-Caffier, B., & Samson, A. C. (2017). Emo- tion regulation strategies in depressive and anxiety symptoms in youth: A meta-analytic review. Jour- nal of Youth and Adolescence, 46(2), 261-276.
Shaghayegh, M. (2018). The role of family factors in preschool children’s aggression mediated by social skills. Master Thesis, Yazd University, Campus of Humanities and Social Sciences. [In Persian].
Shahim, S. (2007). Relational aggression in preschool children. Iranian Journal of Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology, 13(3), 264-271. [In Persian].
Shields, A., & Cicchetti, D. (1997). Emotion regulation in school-age children: The development of a new criterion Q-sort scale. Developmental Psychology, .906-916 ,33
Shields, A. & Cicchetti, D. (1998). Reactive aggression among maltreated children; The contributions of at- tention and emotion dysregulation. Journal of Child Clinical Psychology, 27(4), 381-395.
Siu, A. F., Ma, Y., & Chui, F. W (2016). Maternal mind- fulness and child social behavior: the mediating role of the mother-child relationship. Mindfulness,7, 577-583.
Slade, A., Sadler, L. S., & Mayes, L. C. (2018). Mother’s insight and child attachment style, Theory, research,
اثربخشی والدگری ذهنآگاهانه مادران بر نظمجویی هیجانی، دلبستگی ایمن ...
Wu, W. C., Lin, C. I., Li, Y. F., Chang, L. Y., & Chiang, T. L. (2020). The mediating effect of dietary patterns on the association between mother’s education lev- el and the physical aggression of five-year-old chil- dren: A population-based cohort study. BMC Pediat- rics, 20(1), 1-10.
Young, K. S., Sandman, C. F., & Craske, M. G. (2019). Positive and negative emotion regulation in adoles- cence: links to anxiety and depression. Brain Scienc- es, 9(4), 76. Reteived March23, 2022 from https:// pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30934877/
Zahedifar, S., Najarian, B., & Shokrkon, H. (2000). Con- struction and validation of a scale for the measure- ment of aggression. Journal of Educational Sciences 3 (1), 73-100. [In Persian].
Zhang, W., Wang, M., & Ying, L. (2019). Parental mind- fulness and preschool children’s emotion regulation: The role of mindful parenting and secure parent-child attachment. Mindfulness,10(12),2481–2491.
Waters, E., Kondo-Ikemura, K., Posada, G., & Rich- ters, J. E. (1990). Learning to love: Mechanisms and milestones. In M. R. Gunnar and L. A. Sroufe (Eds.), Self processes and development. The Min- nesota Symposia on Child Psychology. Vol. 23, (pp. 217-255). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Wong, K., Hicks, L. M., Seuntjens, T. G., Trentacosta, C. J., Hendriksen, T. H., Zeelenberg, M., & van den Heuvel, M. I. (2019). The role of mindful parenting in individual and social decision-making in chil- dren. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 550.
Wright, B., Hackney, L., Hughes, E., Barry, M., Gla- ser, D., Prior, V., Allgar, V., Marshall, D., Barrow, J., Kirby, N., Garside, M., Kaushal, P., Perry, A., & McMillan, D. (2017). Decreasing rates of disor- ganized attachment in infants and young children, who are at risk of developing, or who already have disorganized attachment. A systematic review and meta-analysis of early parenting interventions. PloS One, 12(7), e0180858.