Effects of Providing Attachment-Based Intervention Training to Mothers on the Aggression of Elementary School Boys

Aggression is among the emotional and behavioral problems associated with significant social, emotional, and educational conditions in children. The present study aimed to evaluate the effects of providing attachment–based intervention training to mothers on reducing aggression in preschool boys.

This was a quasi–experimental study with a pretest–posttest–follow–up and a control group design. The statistical population of this study was male students of elementary school (first grade) in district 4 of education in Tehran City, Iran, in the academic year of 2018–2019 who were selected by convenience sampling method. The study sample consisted of 30 mothers of primary school boys; they were randomly divided into the experimental and control groups. The mothers of 300 students responded to the Shahim Aggression Questionnaire for Primary School Children (2006). Then, among the mothers who had aggressive children according to the questionnaire (the inclusion criterion of the study was boys who were classified above the standard deviation in response to the aggression questionnaire), 30 mothers were selected. The pretest was administered to the study groups by completing the research questionnaire. Next, the experimental group received child–centered attachment intervention (in two 2–hour group sessions & 6 individual 1–hour sessions). At the end of the study course, the posttest was performed in the experimental and control groups. The exclusion criteria of the study included mothers who received training programs in the last two months; the presence of the other parent, and more than two absenteeism sessions. After one month, as well as after two months, the follow–up tests were conducted to evaluate the effects of the provided intervention on the experimental group. The Shahim Aggression Questionnaire for Shahim Primary School Children was developed by Shahim in 2006 to measure aggressive children. Cronbachchr('39')s alpha coefficient was obtained for the whole questionnaire as 0.91, i.e., highly desirable. Cronbachchr('39')s alpha coefficient for physical, relational, and verbal aggression was measured as 0.85, 0.89, and 0.83, respectively. To analyze the obtained data, considering the assumptions (Levene’s test for the homogeneity of error variances; Boxchr('39')s M–test for the homogeneity of covariance matrices), repeated–measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used at the significance level of 0.05 in SPSS.

The collected results suggested that attachment–based intervention training could significantly reduce aggression in primary school boys (p<0.001).

Attachment–based intervention training can be used as an effective method to reduce childrenchr('39')s aggression by modifying the mother–child interaction pattern and enhancing the positive parenting skills of the mothers of aggressive boys.