Zohreh Sepehri Shamloo, Atiyeh Taghavi Bojnordi

Abstract

The goal of the current study is to investigate the effectiveness of group learning of concepts and techniques of the Imago relationship approach (Imago) on changing the authoritarian or permissive parenting of mothers of children attending the kindergarten located at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran.The design of this study is quasi-experimental and it uses pretest-posttest- and follow-up with a control group. The statistical population of this study was the mothers of kindergarten trainees at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in 2014. Twenty mothers were selected through convenience sampling by an announcement for participating in a research program and after screening with a questionnaire. The members of this sample were placed in an experiment group and a control group through random assignment. The data collection instrument in this study was Robinson’s Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (accompanied by demographic information) which was completed by the participants in the pretest and posttest stages. After two months, both groups completed the questionnaire for the follow-up stage. After the completion of the pretest, the intervention group participated in eight two-hour sessions to learn the concepts and techniques of communicative imaging treatment. The data were analyzed using the analysis of covariance. The results of the study indicated that compared to the control group, the experiment group which received intervention showed a significant increase in using authoritative style of parenting and a decrease in using authoritarian and permissive styles of parenting. Also, the results of the follow-up stage showed that the passing of time has not made the mothers go back to their inefficient parenting style and they had continued with the authoritative style.Teaching the imago relationship approach is an effective method for increasing the authoritative parenting style of mothers.