Anger Management Instruction for Mothers: A Cognitive Behavioral Approach

Anger and its expression is a problem that affects mental health of parents and their children as well as parent-child relationship. The factors such as negative parent-child interactions and negative family relationships can increase anger and aggression when raising children in the family. Anger is a common experience in parenting and creates numerous problems in the family, school, and community. Research findings indicate that anger management training for mothers is effective in controlling anger in parent-child relationships and improving their mental health. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a cognitive-behavioral anger management intervention for mothers. The design of this study was quasi-experimental with pretest-posttest without control group. 22 mothers who were volunteers participated in this research and anger management program was implemented for seven sessions, each session two hours per week by the researchers . Data were collected utilizing State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (Spielberger, 1999) and Anger Evaluation Questionnaire (Shokoohi-Yekta & Zamani, 2007) to assess parent's anger toward their children. Findings of this research indicate the effectiveness of anger management training based on cognitive-behavioral approach on reducing anger in mothers. Finally, implications of the findings, research limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.