Investigating the effects of a play-based mental awareness training program on psychological resilience, emotion regulation skills, and executive functions of preschool children

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of a game-based mental mindfulness education program on preschool children's psychological resilience, emotion regulation skills, and executive function development. Materials and Methods: A pretest-posttest-follow-up test control group experimental design was used in this study. The study group consisted of 40 children aged between 5 and 6 years (20 in the experimental group and 20 in the control group). Data were collected using the "Emotion Regulation Scale," the "Childhood Executive Function Inventory (CHEXI)," and the "DECA-P2 (Devereux Early Childhood Assessment for Preschoolers)." The experimental group received a 10-week, 20-session game-based mental mindfulness education program. For data analysis, paired and independent samples t-tests were used for group comparisons, and repeated measures ANOVA was employed to assess the permanence of gains. Results: The findings revealed that children in the experimental group showed a statistically significant improvement in executive functions, emotion regulation, and psychological resilience compared to the control group (p<0.05). The follow-up test results also indicated a continued positive effect of the program. Conclusion: The game-based mental mindfulness education program made multidimensional contributions to preschool children's cognitive and emotional development. Notable improvements were observed in coping with stress, self- regulation, attention control, and social adaptation. Based on these results, it is recommended that mindfulness-based game programs be integrated into the early childhood education curriculum. Keywords: Emotion Regulation, Executive Function, Game-Based Education, Mental Mindfulness, Preschool Children, , Psychological Resilience,