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Mindful Parenting in Secondary Child Mental Health: Key Parenting Predictors of Treatment Effects

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Abstract

Objectives

Emerging evidence supports the positive effects of mindful parenting as a clinical intervention in the context of child psychopathology; however, previous studies have not considered the specific parenting predictors of improvements in child outcomes.

Methods

Parents accessing a child and youth secondary mental health care center participated in an 8-week mindful parenting training (n = 89). The effects of the mindful parenting training were assessed on parent-reported child’s psychopathology, parents’ own psychopathology, mindfulness, and parenting factors from pre- to post-intervention, 8-week and 1-year follow-up.

Results

Multi-level analyses indicated immediate and delayed improvements in most child and parent outcomes. Changes in experiential avoidance in parenting partially predicted improvements in child internalizing problems. In combination with mindful parenting, experiential avoidance in parenting fully accounted for improvements in child attention problems. Changes in parental over-reactivity fully accounted for improvements in child externalizing problems.

Conclusions

The mindful parenting training successfully improved the targeted (mindful) parenting factors, which in turn predicted improvements across different child outcomes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Applied Psychology, Gold Coast Campus, Griffith University, Parklands Drive, Southport, Queensland, 4222, Australia

    Lisa Marie Emerson

  2. Department of Clinical Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands

    Evin Aktar

  3. Dept. of Child Development and Education, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands

    Esther de Bruin

  4. UvA minds, academic outpatient (child and adolescent) treatment center of the University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Eva Potharst

  5. Developmental Psychology, UvA minds, academic outpatient (child and adolescent) treatment center of the University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Susan Bögels

Authors
  1. Lisa Marie Emerson
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  2. Evin Aktar
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  3. Esther de Bruin
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  4. Eva Potharst
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  5. Susan Bögels
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Contributions

LME wrote the paper. EA conducted data analyses and collaborated with the writing of the paper. EdB collaborated in the writing of the paper. EP conducted data analysis and collaborated in writing the paper. SB designed the study and collaborated in the writing and editing of the manuscript. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lisa Marie Emerson.

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Conflict of Interest

SB is shareholder of a treatment center that offers Mindful Parenting training. All other authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Ethical Committee of the University of Amsterdam, the Medical Ethical Commission of the Academic Medical Center of the University of Amsterdam and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the studies.

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Emerson, L., Aktar, E., de Bruin, E. et al. Mindful Parenting in Secondary Child Mental Health: Key Parenting Predictors of Treatment Effects. Mindfulness 12, 532–542 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-019-01176-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-019-01176-w

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