Development of an Educational-Psychological Manual for Parenting After Divorce Based on Positive Parenting and Investigating the Effectiveness of the Developed Manual on Children's Emotion Regulation

Abstract

This study aimed to develop an educational-psychological manual for parenting after divorce based on positive parenting and to investigate its effectiveness on emotion regulation. The research employed a mixed-method approach, incorporating qualitative phenomenology. The study population consisted of 16 custodial parents selected through purposive sampling from visitors to a family court complex in Tehran, employing semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed using the seven-step process by Colaizzi. The quantitative section of the research was a quasi-experimental pre-test and post-test design. The statistical population was 177 parents, of whom 26 were selected through convenience sampling from parents who responded to the Shields and Cicchetti Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (1997) and whose children scored lower. These participants were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups and analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA). The qualitative research findings led to 7 main themes and 46 sub-themes. The quantitative findings showed that the developed educational-psychological manual has a significant effect on the emotion regulation of children of divorce (p < 0.001). Therefore, the educational-psychological manual based on positive parenting can be used for the emotional regulation problems of children after divorce.