Mindful parenting: future directions and challenges

Abstract

ABSTRACT Mindful parenting teaches parents to focus awareness on their thoughts, feelings and behaviours, as well as pay attention to their children in an intentional, present-centered and non-judgmental manner. Mindfulness appears to improve the quality of parenting and the parent–child relationship, as well as enhance children’s and parents' levels of resilience and psychological functioning. However, an understanding of the processes and techniques underpinning effective mindful parenting remains constrained due to methodological limitations. These limitations include an over reliance on non-experimental designs, uncontrolled studies, self-report assessments, small sample sizes mostly comprising mothers, and uncertainty with regards to the definitions and meanings of certain concepts and protocols for mindful parenting interventions. In order to examine the effectiveness of mindful parenting interventions, standards need to be established which define the meaning of mindful parenting and identify the correlates, determinants and mechanisms of change in mindful parenting over time, in order to determine modifiable factors so that interventions can be appropriately targeted to vulnerable populations. This paper discusses some of the latest research developments in mindful parenting, provides recommendations for effective mindfulness practice from a parenting context and discusses key future challenges affecting this area of mindfulness research and practice.