Children of Incarcerated parents: An experimental study of life-skills intervention on self-esteem, emotional problems and resilience

Abstract

Increases in the incarceration rate during the past several decades have makes to consider its effects on families, communities, and in particular, children of incarcerated parents. Parental incarceration creates a significant risk of childhood mental health, educational prospects, social stigma, and behavioral problems. So, imparting life-skills to them to develop self-awareness make informed decisions, cognitive, social, and self-management skills for life adjustment. The intention of the current study was to identify the life-skills-based intervention on self-esteem among children of incarcerated parents. The pre-post experimental design without a control group was used with a sample comprised of 22 children in the age group 10-15 whose parent has been incarcerated were selected with the purposive sampling method. Pope et al Self-esteem inventory (1988) tool used for this study. The intervention was conducted in 11 sessions and the duration of each session was one and half an hour. Results indicated that after the life-skills intervention, children of incarcerated parents experienced a significant increase in self-esteem (ρ = 0.035*). Further, the study concluded that life-skills intervention established to be effective in enhancing self-esteem in children of incarcerated parents.