3-124 - Can Mindfulness Improve Parenting?: Results from Longitudinal and Intervention Studies

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Initial mindfulness research focused on mindfulness in the individual. Recently, mindfulness has been applied to interpersonal relationships. In particular, mindfulness may have an important role in parenting and the parent-child relationship (Dumas, 2005; Duncan et al., 2009). Mindfulness may help parents increase awareness of emotions in their child, tolerate normative child behaviors without over-reactivity, be more “present” in interactions with children, and be more compassionate towards their children and themselves, which may increase positive parenting and parent-child relationship quality (Coatsworth et al., 2010; Duncan et al., 2009). However, research is just beginning to examine the potential of mindful parenting empirically. This symposium includes papers from three different laboratories which explore the role of mindfulness in parenting and child adjustment using diverse methodologies, including longitudinal designs, examination of parenting-focused mindfulness interventions, and child-reported, parent-reported, and laboratory-based measures of parenting.

Paper 1 examines parent dispositional mindfulness as it predicts mindfulness in co-parenting, parent-child relationship quality, and children’s externalizing problems through a 1 year follow-up. Paper 2 reports results of a randomized controlled trial of a parenting-focused mindfulness intervention on parent-adolescent relationship quality and mindful parenting using parent report and a laboratory-based parent-adolescent interaction task. Paper 3 goes a step beyond intervention outcome effects to examine moderators of effects of the mindfulness-enhanced Strengthening Families Program for parents of early adolescents, finding moderation by parent and child gender. Our discussant, an internationally-recognized expert on interpersonal mindfulness in parenting, will integrate, interpret, and highlight essential issues raised by presenters and discuss future directions for research.

Sub Unit

• Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Chair

• Tara M Chaplin, George Mason University

Discussant

• Larissa Duncan, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Individual Presentations

• Mindfulness in Coparenting: A Prospective Longitudinal Process Model - Presenting Author: Justin Parent, University of Vermont; Laura McKee, Georgia State University; Rex Forehand, University of Vermont

• Parenting-Focused Mindfulness Intervention Improves Emotional Aspects of Parenting - Presenting Author: Tara M Chaplin, George Mason University; Caitlin Turpyn, George Mason University; Sarah Fischer, George Mason University; Alexandra Martelli, George Mason University; Corynne Ross, George Mason University; Richard Leichtweis, Inova Kellar Center; Adam Bryant Miller, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Rajita Sinha, Yale University School of Medicine

• The Mindfulness Enhanced Strengthening Families Program 10-14: Moderated Effects and Mediating Processes - Presenting Author: Doug Coatsworth, Colorado State University; Larissa Duncan, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Robert Nix, University of Wisconsin; Mark T. Greenberg, Pennsylvania State University