ABSTRACT
Mindfulness is increasingly offered to parents of children presenting with behavioral problems, either as a stand-alone intervention, or integrated within existing behavioral parenting interventions. There is relatively modest support for mindful parenting, with small to medium effect size improvements demonstrated across child and parent outcome measures. Here we introduce a mindfulness and imagery enhanced behavioral parenting program. We argue blending mindfulness, imagery and behavioral skills could produce improved parenting engagement and perseverance, leading to stronger outcomes. Pilot data is presented from two contrasting real world clinical settings. Parents attending the 8-week Confident Carers Cooperative Kids (CCCK) group program in a university clinic setting were invited to be included in the study (n = 20). Permission was also gained to use archival data from a community organisation offering CCCK groups to parents who were at risk of child welfare involvement (n = 14). Pre- and post-intervention measures were completed across both groups on parent-reported child behavior, parent wellbeing, adaptive parenting, and mindful parenting. Parents from both groups achieved significant pre- to post-intervention improvements in child behavior problems, parent wellbeing, adaptive parenting, and mindful parenting, with large effect sizes. Larger improvements in child behavior problems were reported by parents from the community group compared with the university group. The CCCK intervention appears beneficial across child and parent outcomes, including for families most in need. A larger sample is required to replicate and extend these promising findings.
ABSTRACT
Objectives: While mindfulness-based parenting programs (MPPs) are increasingly popular for reducing child behavior problems, the evidence for the advantages of MPP over existing behavioral parent training is unclear. Existing systematic reviews have largely excluded the breadth of MPP protocols, including those that integrate behavioral skills components. Therefore, a scoping review was conducted to map the nature and extent of research on MPPs for parents of children aged 3 to 12 years with behavioral problems. Methods: PRISMA-ScR guidelines were used to conduct an encompassing peer literature review of cross-disciplinary databases. Studies were included if they reported mindfulness interventions for parents of children aged between 3 and 12 years with externalizing behavior problems and had an outcome measure of child behavioral problems that could be represented as an effect size. Randomized controlled trials as well as quasi-experimental, pre-post studies and unpublished dissertations were included. Results: Sixteen studies met the inclusion criteria (N = 1362). The majority of MPPs delivered mindfulness adapted to parenting based on the Bögels' protocol within clinical settings. There was a dearth of fully integrated mindfulness and behavioral programs. MPPs generally produced pre-to-post-intervention improvements with small effect sizes across child behavior and parent style, stress, and mindfulness measures. Examining longer follow-up periods compared to pre-intervention, effects reached a moderate size across most outcome measures. Conclusions: MPPs continue to show promise in improving child behavior and parental mindfulness, well-being, and style. Further research is needed to determine how to best leverage the advantages of mindfulness in augmenting the well-established effectiveness of behavioral programs.
