Activating parental mentalization during homework time; the role of mindful observation

• In Event: Making room for mentalization in everyday parenting: from research to practice

Abstract

Introduction: There has been a surge in mentalization-based interventions with parents in the past twenty years. Despite the positive effect of improved parental mentalization on parenting practices, changing parental mentalization is a challenging therapeutic task. Part of the challenge is related to the gap between online and offline mentalization processes and in particular to parental difficulty attending to the child’s mind when being stressed, distracted, or emotionally aroused. In the current presentation, we argue that improving parental mentalization requires changing the structure of the parent-child interaction in a fashion that reduces the cognitive load on parents and encourages parents to more mindfully observe their child. To demonstrate the relationship between mindful observation and parental mentalization, we examined data from an RCT assessing an online intervention with parents aiming at improving parental homework support. In this brief intervention, we taught parents to remove home-related distractions and to dedicate five minutes at the beginning of homework time to a guided observation of their child’s work before offering any help. We hypothesized that following the implementation of the 5 minutes observation technique, parents will be able to improve their mentalization about the child. Methods: 60 parents (95% mothers) of elementary school children )Mchild age= 9.64, SD=1.43, 56% boys) recruited from the community were assigned to intervention or waitlist control groups. The online intervention involved one introduction session teaching the 5-minute technique, two weeks of practice, and a closure meeting to discuss the implementation experience. Before and after the intervention or the waiting period, parents completed online questionnaires assessing parental reflective functioning (PRFQ, Luyten et al., 2017), and a reflective functioning interview adapted to the homework context. Results: 57 families completed the study. Families in the internvention condition reported practicing the technique between 2-4 times. An analysis of variance revealed a significant, medium effect size interaction of Group x Time in parental reflective functioning (F(1, 54)=5.31; p=0.02, η2=.09; see Figure 1). In addition, a non-significant, small effect size interaction of Group x Time was found in parental reported interest and curiosity in the child’s mind (F(1, 54)=1.7; p=.19, η2=.03; see Figure 2 ), alongside a nonsignificant medium effect size for Time in parental reported prementalizing mode (F(1, 54)=3.84; p=.056, η2=.07; see Figure 3). Conclusion: The study results demonstrated the impact of a brief, online intervention focusing on mindful observation techniques on the parental ability to think about the child’s mind. The study results highlighted the role of structure (e.g., how parents organize the time and space during interactions with their child) as an important facilitator of parental capacity to mentalize and of parental interest in the child’s mental state. Our discussion will focus on the implications of the findings for everyday parenting and mentalization-based interventions.

Authors

• Naama Gershy, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
  Presenting Author

• Racheli Cohen, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

• Yuval Zonberg, Hebrew University