Mindful Parenting Contributes to Children’s Executive Function Development

• In Event: From Infancy to Preadolescence--Relations Between Parent- or Parenting-Related Factors and Children’s Executive Functions

Abstract

Parenting styles and behaviours, such as sensitive parenting and scaffolding, have been associated with executive functions (EF) in children. A relatively recent aspect of parenting that has received increasing attention is mindful parenting. Little research has examined how parents’ interpersonal mindfulness in the context of parenting can contribute to the development of children’s EF across childhood as well as moderators of these associations. Drawing data from a follow-up study to a longitudinal study, we examined the associations between mindful parenting and several dimensions of child EF near the end of middle childhood (i.e., late-middle childhood; LMC): an objective, computerized EF task and self- and teacher-reported EF difficulties in everyday functioning. We also examined whether these associations were moderated by how sensitive children were to influences in their environment and whether mindful parenting modulated the relationship between children’s EF at early childhood (EC) and children’s EF at LMC. We hypothesized that i) more mindful parenting would be associated with better EF in LMC; ii) the associations between mindful parenting and EF would be stronger for children with higher environmental sensitivity; iii) the associations between EC and LMC EF would be stronger for children with lower mindful parenting.
Part of a larger study, the current preliminary dataset was drawn from a larger sample of N=508 children (~Grade 5 to 6) (Mage = 11.0 years; 50.1% female) with data from EC and LMC time points. As part of a larger battery, LMC measures collected on standardized scales/tasks were parent-reported mindful parenting, child-reported child environment sensitivity, child- and teacher-reported EF difficulties in everyday functioning, and a computer-based adaptive card sorting task assessing overall EF. Early childhood data had been collected at various time points over the children’s Kindergarten 1 (K1) to Primary 1 (P1; ~Grade 1) years. The EC measures included the same teacher-reported EF difficulties in everyday functioning and a similar computer-based card sorting task assessing switching at P1. As hypothesized, at LMC higher mindful parenting was correlated with better EF, but only in terms of less EF difficulties in everyday functioning; this association was stronger for teacher-reports than self-reports. Contrary to expectations, child sensitivity did not moderate these associations. Additionally, child sensitivity contributed unique variance to self-reported EF difficulties. Teacher-reported EF difficulties in EC was strongly correlated with teacher-reported EF difficulties at LMC, with a trend moderation indicating weaker associations at higher levels of mindful parenting. Objective EF task scores in EC was weakly-to-moderately correlated with objective EF task scores in LMC, with no moderation by mindful parenting. Findings suggest: i) early identification of EF difficulties in the classroom is important as it is strongly predictive of persistent EF difficulties further down development; ii) this may be attenuated by mindful parenting; iii) development of different aspects of EF maybe modulated by different influences.

Authors

• Kiat Hui Khng, Nanyang Technological University
  Presenting Author

• Kerry Lee, The Education University of Hong Kong

• EeLynn Ng, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

• Rebecca Bull, Macquarie University