Browsing by Author "Hukkanen, Henna-Maaret"

Objective. Mindful parenting, which means applying the principles of mindfulness to the parent-child relationship, has received growing interest in the recent years. Cross-sectional studies have provided evidence for an association between mindful parenting and better child outcomes, a more secure attachment and the use of more positive and less negative parenting practices. In addition, mindful parenting has been shown to be associated with, for example, less parenting stress. The purpose of this literature review is to examine longitudinal studies and determine whether mindful parenting interventions, for parents of children under the age of seven, are associated with the quality of parent-child interactions, child behavior or parent well-being. Methods. Mindful parenting intervention studies for parents of children aged 0–6 years were searched in the PubMed and Scopus databases. The combination of keywords mindful* and parenting were used and the search was limited to studies published between 2015–2020. The review excluded studies that were conducted on parents of children with a developmental disorder. In addition, studies that focused on child feeding and studies conducted with parents with a substance use disorder were excluded. Seven studies were found in the databases. Results and conclusions. The studies provide initial evidence regarding the association between mindful parenting interventions, for parents of children under the age of seven, and a more positive parent-child relationship, better child behavior and higher parental well-being. This is indicated by improvement seen in, for example, parental accepting behaviour towards the child and reductions in over-reactive parenting, together with reductions in parent reported child problem behaviour and parental stress. Study limitations, like small sample sizes and lack of control groups, limit the reliability of made conclusions.