The purpose of this study was to develop a sand-tray play parent education program based on emotional intelligence with the objective of improving parents' emotional intelligence. For this purpose, First, research was conducted in 255 parents of children at nurseries and kindergartens in D City to identify their needs with the aim of developing a sandtray play parent education program based on emotional intelligence. Second, on the basis of the results of literature review and the research on parents' needs, a 10-session program was developed. This study is significant in that it developed a parent education program, focusing on improvement in parents' emotional intelligence, which was relatively less likely to attract attention, as a means of reducing young children's problem behavior; it developed an experience-based parent education program by which parents could personally experience, understand, and apply emotions to daily life rather than a parent education program for delivering contents; and it confirmed usability of sandtray play in improving parents' emotional intelligence.