Effectiveness of Mothers'Mindful Parenting on Emotional Regulation, Secure Child-Parent Attachment, and Aggression in Preschool Children

This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of mothers’ mindful parenting training on emotional regulation, secure child-parent attachment, and aggression of their preschool children. The research was quasi-experimental with a pretest, posttest, and follow-up design with a control group. The statistical population included all mothers with preschool children in Isfahan in the academic year 2019-20, from which 50 people were selected by stage random sampling and randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. The research instruments included Aggression Scale for Preschoolers (Vahedi, Fathiazar, Hosseini-Nasab & Moghaddam, 2008), Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC) (Shields and Cicchetti, 1997) and Kinship Center Attachment Questionnaire (Kappenberg & Halpern, 2006). The experimental group then received Boggles  and Rastifo protocol (2014) in 8 sessions of 90 minutes of mindful parenting protocol. The obtained data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance. The results showed that mothers’ mindful parenting training increased adaptive emotional regulation and secure attachment and decreased the instability of emotional regulation and aggression in their children. However, in the follow-up phase (5 months after the intervention), no significant difference was observed between the variables of the two groups, which can confirm the reholding of these courses in short intervals for parents. The findings of this research highlight the necessity of applying mindful parenting training programs to mothers in order to improve parent-child attachment relationships, and emotional regulation and reduce aggression in preschool children.