Background and purpose: externalized behavior disorder is among those disorders which disturb the process of social behavior and psychological as well as emotional health of the children. Therefore the present study was conducted to investigate the efficacy of training positive parenting on the alexithymia and self-control of the children with externalized behavior disorder.
Method: it was a quasi-experimental study with pretest, posttest and control group design. The statistical population of the present study included primary school male children with externalized behavior disorder in the city of Mashhad in academic year 2019-20. 30 male children with externalized behavior disorder were selected through purposive sampling method and were randomly accommodated into experimental and control groups (each group of 15 children). The parents in the experimental group received eight ninety-minute intervention sessions of training positive parenting during two months while the control group didn’t receive these interventions during the study. The applied questionnaires in this study included children and adolescents’ behavioral inventory (Achenbach, Rescorla, 2001), the children’s alexithymia questionnaire (Rieffe, 2006) and children’s self-control questionnaire (Kendal & Wilcox,1979). The data from the study were analyzed through SPSS23 software via ANCOVA method.
Findings: the results showed that training positive parenting has significant effect on the alexithymia and self-control of the children with externalized behavior disorder (p>0.001) in a way that this intervention succeeded in decreasing alexithymia and improving self-control in these children.