Background and Purpose: Aggression is one of the most common behavioral problems in children, which is mostly the result of troubled and unhealthy structure of the family and poor parent-child relationship. Thus, this study was done to determine the effectiveness of mother-child rhythmic movement games training on reducing verbal and nonverbal aggression in 3 to 5 year-old children.
Method: The present study was a quasi-experimental study with a control group pretest-posttest design and a two-month follow-up period. The population included 3 to 5 year-old girls and boys attending the kindergarten of Shahid Beheshti University in 2017. After screening with Aggression Scale (Vahedi et al., 2008), 18 girls and boys together with their mothers were selected by convenience sampling and then assigned to either the experimental or control group. Mothers and children of the experimental group received 10 sessions of rhythmic movement games training, while the control group received no intervention. Data were analyzed by repeated measures analysis of variance.
Results: Findings showed a significant difference between the experimental and control group in terms of general aggression (F = 6.68, P = 0.02), verbal-invasive aggression (F = 16.59, P = 0.001), physical-invasive aggression (F = 14.16, P = 0.002) and relational aggression (F = 22.36, P=0.000) in the post-test and follow-up phases.
Conclusion: According to the results of this study, it can be said that using rhythmic movement games, children learned to deal with stimuli and extended it to their surroundings, especially in relation to peers, which reduced g verbal and non-verbal aggression in them. As a result, this method can be used as a supplementary method along with other therapies for this disorder.