Yoga and Self-Compassion Training on Aggressiveness in the Mothers of Children with Physical-Motor Disorders

Two–thirds of all mothers, who’s their children have developmental disorders encounter more mental and behavioral problems such as aggression, compared to the parents of healthy children. In addition to increasing personal growth, yoga, as a complementary therapy, focuses on reducing psychiatric symptoms. Thus, the current research aimed to investigate the effect of yoga and self–compassion training on aggressiveness in the mothers of children with physical–motor disorders.

This was a quasi–experimental study with a pretest–posttest and a control group design. The study participants consisted of 40 mothers in the age range of 18–40 years with children suffering from physical–motor disorders in Isfahan City, Iran. They were randomly assigned into 4 groups (n=10 per group) (the experimental group 1 received self–compassion training interventions for 8 sessions, experimental group 2 received yoga exercises for 24 sessions, experimental group 3 received a combination of self–compassion training and yoga exercises, and the control group received no intervention). We used the Self–Compassion Scale (SCS) (Neff, 2003) and the Aggression Questionnaire (AQ) (Eysenck and Glyn Wilson, 1975) to collect the required data. The reliability of the questionnaires was calculated to be above 0.70 and 0.74 using Cronbachchr('39')s alpha coefficient, respectively. The collected data were analyzed using the Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) while controlling the pretest effect.  Data analysis was performed in SPSS at a significance level of p=0.05.

The obtained data revealed that the aggressiveness level in the studied mothers in the yoga group (p=0.013), as well as self–compassion group (p=0.009) were significantly reduced, compared to the controls; however, there was no significant difference between the yoga and self–compassion group and the control group.

Mothers make a major contribution to the growth and development of children. Therefore, the quality of their life should be improved and the family atmosphere could become friendlier and more intimate by reducing aggression and increasing self–compassion in mothers. This could be achieved using yoga and self–compassion practices.