Effectiveness of Group Play therapy on Resilience and Self-Control Strategies in Children of Divorced Parents

Divorce is one of the most stressful events in life and the most important indicator of marital disturbance that affects students' psychological, emotional, behavioral, academic, and communication processes. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of group play therapy on resiliency and self-control strategies in children of divorced parents.

The method of this study was pre-test and post-test with control group. The statistical population of this study consisted of all children of divorced parents aged 7-10 years studying in primary school in the academic year of 2016-17. The sample size consisted of 30 children from the mentioned statistical population who were selected by cluster sampling method and were randomly assigned into two experimental and control groups (15 children in each group). The experimental group received play therapy intervention in 8 sessions of 60 minutes for two and a half months, while the control group did not receive this intervention during the research process. Questionnaires used in this study included Resiliency Scales for Children and Adolescents (Ungar and Liebenberg, 2009) and Children's Perceived Self Control Scale (Humphrey, 2000).The data were analyzed by SPSS 23 software using covariance analysis.

The results of the data analysis showed that play therapy was effective on resilience and self-control strategies in children of divorced parents (P <0.001).

Based on the findings of the present study, it can be concluded that group play therapy using techniques such as discovering and treating the causes of resistance and opposition to others and the laws, training how to identify their emotions, and anger management can be an effective way to improve resilience and self-control strategies for children of divorced parents at school and psychological clinics.