Parenting Program on Mothers’ Emotion Regulation and Mother-Child Interactions in Children with Behavioral Disorders

Behavioral disorders are among the most frequent neurodevelopmental disorders and the common cause of children’s referrals to psychologists and health professionals. Adding to their behavioral problems, numerous children with behavioral disorders encounter problems on interaction and relationship with their parents, siblings, and peers. The enduring nature of social reaction easily leads to social isolation. This is because children and adolescents with behavioral disorders have a few friends. Sometimes, they attempt onto the least chance for interaction with others and set up a vicious circle. Parenting programs based on Sanders’ model of training seem to improve the mother-child interaction and reduce behavioral problems of children with behavioral disorders. The parenting program based on Sanderchr('39')s model of training has a considerable effect on the attitude of parents concerning their children; these children’s main behavioral problems regard their interaction with parents. Parents, especially mothers of children with behavioral disorders, face numerous challenges in emotional reactions. Inappropriate parenting could lead to improper emotional reactions and mother-child interactions. Therefore, the present study aimed to determine the effects of a parenting program based on Sanderchr('39')s model of training on the emotion regulation of mothers and mother-child interactions in children with behavioral disorders.

This was a quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest and a control group design. The study participants were 30 mothers who had children with behavioral disorders. They aged 35-45 years and the study was performed in the 2018-2019 academic year. They were from the middle socioeconomical class. The study subjects were selected by convenience sampling method and from counselling clinic of Armaghan in Varamin City, Iran. They were randomly divided into the experimental and control groups, each group consisting of 15 mothers. The experimental group participated in the 10-session parenting program based on Sanders model of training (two 70-min weekly sessions); however, no intervention was provided to the control group. The Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) of Garnefski and Kraaij, and Child-Parent Relationship Scale of Robert C. Piyanta were used for data collection. These scales were completed by the investigated mothers in pretest and posttest phases (before & after the intervention provision). Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) was used to analyze the obtained data in SPSS (p<0.05). 

Initially, the normality of research variables and contingency of variance and covariance assumptions were tested. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test data suggested that all variables were distributed normally. Additionally, Box test results confirmed the contingency of variance-covariance assumption. Accordingly, the assumptions of MANCOVA were confirmed and this test could be implemented for data analysis. The MANCOVA findings reported that the experimental and control groups significantly differed in emotion regulation and mother-child interaction at posttest (p<0.001). The MANCOVA results also revealed that the provided parenting program significantly influenced emotion regulation and mother-child interaction in children with behavioral disorders (p<0.001). In other words, the presented parenting program significantly improved emotion regulation strategies and mother-child interaction in children with behavioral disorders. It can be said that according to Eta square 58%, 56%, and 55% of variations in variables such as on adjustment emotional regulation strategies, no adjustment emotional regulation strategies of mothers and interaction of mother and child with behavioral disorder respectively, can be explained by the subjects’ participation in parenting program based on sanders model training.

The parenting program based on Sanders model of training improved emotion regulation in the investigated mothers as well as interaction of mother and child in the studied children with behavioral disorder. On the present research finding suggested that planning for such training programs significantly impact the emotion regulation of mothers as well as the interaction of mother and child in children with behavioral disorder.