Developing an emotion socialization parenting package and evaluating its effectiveness on the sense of competence of mothers of students with internalizing behaviors

Behavioral problems are among the problems that challenge various aspects of an individual's life, including school, work, and especially family. The family is also one of the effective factors in creating and modifying these problems. Therefore, this study aimed to develop an emotion socialization parenting package and evaluate its effectiveness on the sense of competence of the mothers of 7-10- year-old female students with internalizing behaviors. 

This research was exploratory, having qualitative-quantitative nature. The qualitative phase focused on the development of an educational package using the content analysis method comprising six main themes: supportive reaction to child's emotions, parent's meta-emotion philosophy, family-centered emotional interactions, child's emotional competence development, emotion regulation training, and parents' non-supportive reactions to the child's emotions which were presented during eight sessions. The quantitative phase had a pre-test and post-test design with a control group. The statistical population included all mothers of 7-10-year-old female students studying in Isfahan schools in the academic year of 2018-2019. So, 30 students with behavioral problems were selected using the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL)-Parent Report Form. Their mothers were divided into two experimental (emotion socialization training) and control groups. The Parenting Sense of Competence (PSOC) scale was used as pre-and post-tests. Data were analyzed by analysis of covariance (ANCOVA).

The results indicated that emotion socialization training significantly increased the mother's sense of competence (P< 0.001).

It seems that emotion socialization training impacts positively on mother's sense of competence who have children with internalizing behaviors.