Abstract
Introduction: the children at the age of preschool learn the skills which lead to the improvement of their self-esteem and empathy. Therefore the objective of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of training child-oriented mindfulness on the self-esteem and empathy of the preschool children.
Methods: the research method of the present study was quasi-experimental with pretest-posttest design with control group and 45-day follow-up stage. The statistical population included all preschool children in the city of Isfahan in academic year 2018-19. The sample size was 30 children who got the scores lower than the average in the questionnaires of self-esteem and empathy and were selected through purposeful sampling method and they were randomly accommodated into experimental (15 children) and control (15 children) in the control groups. The experimental group received sixty-minute sessions of training child-oriented mindfulness once a week during two-and-a-half months. The control group has not received any psychological intervention during the study. After the intervention course the children in both groups took the posttest. The follow-up stage was administered after 45 days. The applied questionnaires were the questionnaire of self-esteem (Azizi Moghaddam, 2008) and the questionnaire of empathy (Auyeung et.al. 2009). The data analysis was conducted through descriptive statistics and repeated measurement ANOVA.
Result: the results showed that training child-oriented mindfulness therapy significantly influenced the self-esteem and empathy f preschool children (p<0.001) as this training was able to increase preschool children’s self-esteem and empathy.
Conclusion: according to the findings of the present study it can be concluded that therapy through mindfulness method can be used as an efficient therapy to improve preschool children’s self-esteem and empathy employing techniques such as thoughts, emotions and deliberate behavior.