Abstract:
Objectives: Parental responses to children’s negative emotions play a key role in developing
emotional competence. Poor emotional competence has been linked to disruptive behavior
problems in children. The Tuning in to Kids program is a new emotion-focused parenting
intervention for preschoolers. The Tuning in to Kids aims to improve children’s behavior by
changing mothers’ emotion socialization practices including teaching emotion coaching skills
and reducing dismissing of children’s emotion. This study is an introductory evaluation of an
8-session group parenting program, Tuning into Kids, for mothers of preschool children with
behavior problems in Iran.
Methods: Fiftyfour children (aged 3 to 6), who were screened via preschools and agreed
to participate in the research, were randomized into intervention or waitlist control condition.
Mothers in the intervention group attended the six-sessions of the Tuning in to Kids program
followed by two booster sessions at two-monthly intervals thereafter. Mothers completed the
Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory, the Parent Emotional Style Questionnaire, and the General
Health Questionnaire prior to the intervention, immediately following intervention completion,
and at three months follow-up. Data were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA in SPSS 22.
Results: Mothers in the intervention group reported significantly less emotion dismissing and
child behavior problems than controls at 3-month follow-up (P≤0.01); there were no significant
differences for emotion coaching and maternal mental health in either condition (P≥0.05).
Discussion: The Tuning in to Kids program appears to be a promising parenting intervention
for mothers and children with disruptive behavior problems, offering a useful addition to usual
programs used in Iran.
Machine summary:
Research Paper: Reducing Children Behavior Problems: A Pilot Study of Tuning in to Kids in Iran Fateme Aghaie Meybodi1*, Parvaneh Mohammadkhani1, Abbas Pourshahbaz1, Behrooz Dolatshahi1, Sophie Havighurst2 1.
This study is an introductory evaluation of an8-session group parenting program, Tuning into Kids, for mothers of preschool children with behavior problems in Iran.
Mothers completed the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory, the Parent Emotional Style Questionnaire, and the General Health Questionnaire prior to the intervention, immediately following intervention completion, and at three months follow-up.
Results: Mothers in the intervention group reported significantly less emotion dismissing and child behavior problems than controls at 3-month follow-up (P≤0.
Discussion: The Tuning in to Kids program appears to be a promising parenting intervention for mothers and children with disruptive behavior problems, offering a useful addition to usual programs used in Iran .
For example, Havighurst and colleagues [11] evaluated TIK as an early intervention for preschool children with behavior problems and found that parents in the intervention condition reported less emotion dismissive- ness and child behavior problems as well as greater emotion coaching and empathy.
It was hypothesized that the TIK program would increase parent emotion socialization and reduce child behavior problems.
The dissertation title is "The patterns of moth- er- child emotional interaction and the Effectiveness of the Tuning in to Kids on mothers and Preschoolers with behavior problems" that has been submitted in Depart- ment of Clinical Psychology, University of Social Wel- fare and Rehabilitation Sciences of Tehran.