Validation of the Effectiveness of Empathetic Communication Program using Play: Focusing on Children's Emotional Regulation Ability, Emotionality, and Peer Relationship Skills Perceived by Teachers

Objectives The purpose of this study is to verify how an empathic communication program using play affects children’s emotional regulation ability, emotionality, and peer relationship skills as perceived by teachers, thereby providing foundational data for development programs of children's emotional regulation ability, emotionality, and peer relationship skills. Methods The subjects of the study were a total of 30 children who are five years old, 15 children in the experimental group and 15 in the control group, respectively, and the subjects were attending a kindergarten in N-gu, Seoul, and their parents expressed concerns about their children's adaptation to school after entering elementary school in a situation where they could not use educational institutions due to social distancing measures due to COVID-19. For the young children subjected to the experiment, the empathic communication program using play was implemented 9 times; for the young children in the control group, free choice play in the NURI Curriculum was conducted. The collected data were subjected to independent sample t-test and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) using SPSS 21. Results The research results are as follows. The empathic communication program using play had a significant effect on children’s emotional regulation ability, emotionality, and peer relationship skills perceived by teachers. This suggests that the higher the empathic communication ability of young children, the higher their emotional regulation ability, emotionality, and peer relationship skills. These findings indicate that young children have the ability to accurately recognize their own emotions through empathetic communication using play in a social environment, in addition to being able to control and utilize them appropriately. Also, it can be identified that emotional exchange, which refers to children empathetically communicating when they express negative emotions, is effective in emotionality, and children with developed peer relationship skills demonstrate effective empathetic communication and cooperate with each other, which indicates that they can participate in mutually-cooperative play. Conclusions This study is significant research in that, despite the period of COVID-19, the study showed that pro-social skills are helpful to preschoolers about to enter elementary school based on a teaching-learning method that verifies the effectiveness of children's emotional regulation ability, emotionality, and peer relationship skill development. Furthermore, this study is meaningful in that it confirmed the value of empathetic communication programs using play.