Preschool-based mother-child emotional preparation program improves emotional connection, behavior regulation in the home and classroom: a randomized controlled trial

Abstract

IntroductionBased on the theory that increasing emotional connection and reducing emotional stress between mother and child at home will reduce dysregulated behavior in the classroom, we tested a novel family-based school intervention aimed at facilitating mother-child emotional connection. This question has gained great importance following the COVID-19 pandemic, as child mental health has been declared a national emergency.MethodsSubjects were randomized into two groups; one (Control: n = 32) receiving the standard curriculum in a large community-based preschool education program, and another (MCEP) receiving the standard curriculum plus the Mother Child Emotional Preparation Program (MCEP: n = 30). Two to eight MCEP mother-child pairs participated in eight elective weekly 2-h group sessions over a 16-week period. During the 2-h sessions, the pairs were engaged in face to face calming sessions. At 6 months post-enrollment, we assessed mother-child emotional connection on the Welch Emotional Connection Screen (WECS). In addition, mothers and teachers completed validated questionnaires and instruments.ResultsWe found that the percentage of MCEP mother-child pairs who became emotionally connected at 6 months was five-fold higher than Control pairs (47.4%, vs. 8.3% p = 0.004, effect size = 0.44). Also at six months, MCEP children had fewer behavioral symptoms (p = 0.024)) (effect size >0.5); fewer autism symptoms (p = 0.048) (effect size = 0.53); fewer emotional symptoms (p = 0.01) (effect size >0.76); better personal, social skills (p = 0.045) (effect size = 0.51); better executive function (p = 0.032) (effect size = 0.59). Importantly, teachers reported MCEP children showed more improved behavior in the classroom, compared to controls.DiscussionThis trial was retrospectively registered in the clinicaltrial.gov registry (NCT02970565) on April 9, 2019.

Preschool mother-child emotional preparation program leads to significant improvement in autonomic regulation: a randomized controlled trial

“…In a prior report we found that MCEP resulted in improvements in behavior as measured on the Survey of Well Being of Young Children (SWYC) (13). Here, we found children with worse SWYC scores tended to have higher heart rate (r = +0.39, n = 24, p = 0.057, effect size = 0.41).…”

“…Two secondary hypotheses were also specified based on prior results. As noted above we have recently published results from the preschool CLC RCT which showed that children randomized to the MCEP intervention group were more likely to be emotionally connected as indexed by WECS scores six months after the last intervention session (13). Here we tested the hypothesis that there would be significant relationships between emotional connection scores on the WECS and physiology.…”

“…The WECS has been validated in preterm (23); full-term (45) infants and preschool-aged children (13).…”

“…Previously, we reported that the MCEP mother-child dyads (vs. controls) were more emotionally connected at six months post accrual and MCEP children (vs. controls) displayed better socioemotional behavior at home and in the classroom (13). In addition to behavioral benefits, we recorded real-time physiological data to better inform decisions on whether to integrate the preventative practices into CLC's preschool standard curriculum.…”

Fantastic voyage: Chasing oxytocin from the bedside to the bench and back again

“…A study of the mothers, as well as of preterm infants, confirmed that the FNI intervention benefits both mother and child [ 42 ]. We have extended our mother-child intervention to an older preschool population and have confirmed our physiologic regulation hypothesis [ 41 , 42 , 56 ]. We have advanced knowledge of oxytocin in the gut-brain connection.…”