Can Change in Parental Reflective Functioning Affect the Parent-Child Relationship, Parental Behavior, and Children’s Outcome?

• In Event: 3-223 - Interventions in Early Childhood: The Central Role of the Parent-Child Relationship

Integrative Statement

Reflective functioning (RF) is the capacity to hold, regulate, and fully experience one’s own and others’ emotions in a non-defensive way without becoming overwhelmed or shutting down. Parental RF is the foundation of parental emotional availability, which is the ability to perceive and interpret a child’s signals and adequately respond to them.
In this study we set to investigate changes in parental RF following the Israeli Reflective Parenting Program (RPP; adapted from Grienenberger & Popek, 2008), a 12-week group intervention program. A model of intervention was suggested, indicating how parental intervention program can improve children’s adjustment. Specifically, it was proposed that the RPP intervention would enhance parental reflective capacities, resulting in better parent-child emotional availability, better child self-regulation, and decreased child behavioral problems.
Hypotheses. After intervention, parents will show improvement in their RF, have a deeper understanding of the importance of their child’s feelings, and have higher levels of competence and control in response to their child’s behavior; children will exhibit fewer behavioral problems. The parent-child interaction will improve, as indicated by higher scores in maternal sensitivity, structuring, nonintrusiveness, and nonhostility; children will show more responsiveness and involvement while interacting with their parents.
Method. Fifty-eight preschoolers (2-6-years old) and their parents participated in this study. Parents from a community preschool clinic and from community nurseries were invited to participate in the program. All parents and their children were assessed before and after the program.
Measures. Parents reported on themselves using the Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (Pajulo, Luyten, & Mayes, 2010), the Parental Sense of Competence Questionnaire (Johnston & Mash, 1989), and the Parental Locus of Control (Campis, Lyman, & Prentice-Dunn, 1986). Additionally, they reported on their children using the Child Behavioral Check List (Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1981) and the Social Skills Rating System (Hess et al., 2014). Finally, the Emotional Availability Scale was used for coding the parent-child filmed interactions (Biringen, 2008).
Results. After intervention, improvements in both parents’ and children’s behaviors and perception as well as in the parent-child relationship were evident. Specifically, after intervention, parents had higher levels of mentalizing stance (t=2.66, p<.05); children’s total behavioral problems score decreased (t=3.64, p<.001). More specifically, parents reported lower levels of children’s somatic complaints (t=2.14, p<.05), withdrawn behaviors (t=4.15, p<.001), attention problems (t=3.35, p<.001), and aggressive behaviors (t=3.40, p<.001). Additionally, children had higher scores in the social skills rating system, indicating better self-control (t= -2.98, p<.05). Finally, parental perception of the importance of children’s feelings, emotions, and thoughts was improved (t=-2.12, p<.05). Moreover, parents reported higher levels of competence and control in their parenting (t=2.41, p<.05, t=2.28, p<.05, respectively). Finally, preliminary findings on mothers from one group (N=6) indicated a significant (p<.05) improvement in maternal sensitivity, structuring, and nonhostility. Additionally, maternal nonintrusiveness and child responsiveness were better post intervention, nearing significance (p< .10).
The importance of enhancing parental RF through the IRPP in early childhood and its impact on the parent-child relationship (as well on children’s development and adjustment) will be discussed.

Authors

• Atara Menashe, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
  Presenting Author

• Naama Atzaba-Poria, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
  Non-Presenting Author