Examining the Effectiveness of Reflective Parenting Training on Emotion Regulation and Parent-Child Relationship in Mothers with Children Under 6 Years

Objective: This study aims to examine the effectiveness of reflective parenting training on emotion regulation and the parent-child relationship in mothers with children under 6 years of age. Method: This is a quantitative study with a pre-test, post-test, and follow-up design involving an experimental group and a control group. The statistical population includes all mothers with children under 6 years old in Isfahan. For sampling, a purposive sampling method was used by visiting kindergartens in Isfahan, and 30 participants were selected based on the cut-off point of the questionnaires and inclusion and exclusion criteria. They were randomly assigned to two groups: an experimental group (15 people) and a control group (15 people). Subsequently, reflective parenting training sessions based on the Bateman and Fonagy (2001) protocol were conducted for the experimental group, while the control group received no intervention. The research instruments included the Parent-Child Relationship Scale (Pianta, 1992) and the Emotion Regulation Inventory (Shield & Cicchetti, 1995). The collected data were analyzed using appropriate statistical tests (repeated measures ANOVA and Bonferroni post hoc test) and SPSS software. Findings: Given that the calculated F-value for between-group effects (group membership effect), within-group effects (time effect), and the interactive effect of group and time was significant at the 99% confidence level (P < 0.01), these results indicate a significant difference between the two groups. Furthermore, it suggests that this significant difference exists at least at one time point during the intervention among the research groups. The Bonferroni post hoc test results showed differences in adaptive emotion regulation, instability/negativity, and the parent-child relationship scores during the research stages between the experimental groups (P < 0.01). In other words, the reflective parenting intervention had a significant impact on improving the research variables. Conclusions: Therefore, it can be concluded that this intervention was effective on the research variables and confirms that this approach can be used as an effective strategy in improving parental abilities and reducing psychological challenges in mothers during the parenting period.