Relationships Between Parental Mindfulness, Parents’ Beliefs About Children’s Emotions, and Their Responses to Their Children’s Emotions

Abstract Objectives This study investigated the mediating role of parents' beliefs about children's emotions in the relationships between facets of dispositional mindfulness and parents' responses to their children's negative emotions.

Methods: Data were collected via an online survey from 1223 parents of children aged 4–10 years. Data were analysed using a structural equation model in which facets of mindfulness predicted beliefs about children’s emotions, which in turn predicted parents’ responses to their children’s negative emotions.

Results: Observe , Describe , and NonJudge were significant predictors of parents’ responses to their children’s negative emotions, and these relationships were significantly mediated by beliefs about children’s emotions. ActAware also significantly predicted responses to children’s emotions, but not all associations were in the hypothesised directions and there was no mediation by beliefs. NonReact did not significantly predict responses to children’s emotions but showed unanticipated associations with beliefs about children’s emotions.

Conclusions: These findings confirm the hypothesis that facets of mindfulness are related to parents’ responses to their children’s emotions through their beliefs about children’s emotions. They also demonstrate that these relationships differ between facets of mindfulness, not only in magnitude, but also in the direction of association. In particular, the unexpected associations between NonReact and beliefs about children’s emotions warrant further study.