Abstract
Mindful parenting training is an application of mindfulness-based interventions that allows parents to perceive their children with unbiased and open attention without prejudgment and become more attentive and less reactive in their parenting. This study examined the effectiveness of mindful parenting training in a clinical setting on child and parental psychopathology and of mindfulness as a predictor of these outcomes. Seventy parents of 70 children (mean age = 8.7) who were referred to a mental health care clinic because of their children’s psychopathology participated in an 8-week mindful parenting training. Parents completed questionnaires at pre-test, post-test and 8-week follow-up. A significant decrease was found in children’s and parents’ psychopathology and a significant increase in mindful parenting and in general mindful awareness. Improvement in general mindful awareness, but not mindful parenting, was found to predict a reduction in parental psychopathology, whereas improvement in mindful parenting, but not general mindful awareness, predicted the reduction of child psychopathology. This study adds to the emerging body of evidence indicating that mindful parenting training is effective for parents themselves and, indirectly, for their children suffering from psychopathology. As parents’ increased mindful parenting, but not increased general mindfulness, is found to predict child psychopathology, mindful parenting training rather than general mindfulness training appears to be the training of choice. However, RCTs comparing mindful parenting to general mindfulness training and to parent management training are needed in order to shed more light on the effects of mindful parenting and mechanisms of change.
Highlights
IntroductionBringing mindfulness principles into parenting allows parents to perceive their children with unbiased and open attention without prejudgment, allowing for more sensitive and responsive reactions to their children’s needs and behaviour, instead of reacting automatically (Kabat-Zinn and Kabat-Zinn 1998)
Mindful parenting is an application of mindfulness-based interventions
Results showed that an increase in Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), corrected for the effect of IM-P, predicted a significant reduction in parental total psychopathology symptoms across measurements (B = −.19, t(64) = −2.52, p < .05), of small effect size
Summary
Bringing mindfulness principles into parenting allows parents to perceive their children with unbiased and open attention without prejudgment, allowing for more sensitive and responsive reactions to their children’s needs and behaviour, instead of reacting automatically (Kabat-Zinn and Kabat-Zinn 1998). Being a parent is a challenging, time consuming, and responsible task. Parents generally raise their child with dedication and love, they commonly simultaneously experience stress. Parenting may be further complicated when the parent or the child have psychopathology symptoms, such as a depressed mood, anxiety, attention and behavioural problems (Bögels and Restifo 2014). Several behavioural parent programs have been developed to support parents in the upbringing of a child with psychopathology symptoms, by teaching them behavioural strategies to cope with the problem behaviour of the child.
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