An analysis of the effectiveness of a parent-involved emotion regulation training program for preschool children (aged 48–60 months) from single-parent families

The present study aims to investigate the impact of a family-involved emotion regulation training program designed for preschool children (aged 48–60 months) from single-parent families on children's emotion regulation skills, mothers' emotion socialization behaviours, and the quality of the mother–child relationship. The study adopted a quasi-experimental design with a pre-test–post-test control group. The participants were single-parent families (divorced mothers) residing in the city centre of Ağrı and their 48–60-month-old children who were not enrolled in a preschool institution. The study group consisted of 56 mother–child dyads, including 28 in the experimental group and 28 in the control group. To collect data, the "General Information Form" developed by the researcher was employed to obtain demographic information about the children and mothers. The "Emotion Regulation Scale" was used to assess children's emotion regulation skills, the "Coping with Children's Negative Emotions Scale" to evaluate mothers' emotion socialization behaviours, and the "Child–Parent Relationship Scale" to assess the quality of the mother–child relationship. The Family-Involved Emotion Regulation Training Program was implemented twice a week over a ten-week period, comprising a total of twenty sessions. For data analysis, the Independent Samples t-test was utilized to determine differences between groups, while the Paired Samples t-test and repeated measures ANOVA were conducted for within-group comparisons. Multiple comparisons of statistically significant differences were examined using the Bonferroni test. The post-test mean scores revealed significant differences in favour of the experimental group in terms of children's emotion regulation skills, mothers' emotion socialization behaviours, and the mother–child relationship. Furthermore, within the experimental group, significant improvements were found in the post test mean scores compared to the pre-test scores on the "Emotion Regulation Scale," "Coping with Children's Negative Emotions Scale," and "Child–Parent Relationship Scale." No significant difference was observed between the post-test and follow-up test mean scores in the experimental group. In conclusion, the findings suggest that the Family-Involved Emotion Regulation Training Program contributed to enhancing children's emotion regulation skills, mothers' emotion socialization behaviours, and the overall quality of the mother–child relationship among single-parent families. Key Words: Family-Involved Emotion Regulation Training Program; Mother-Child Relationship; Emotion Regulation; Emotion Socialization.