Date of Award:

5-2023

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Psychology

Committee Chair(s)

Tyler L. Renshaw

Committee

Tyler L. Renshaw

Committee

Gretchen Gimpell Peacock

Committee

Paul Caldarella

Abstract

Mindfulness exists in many parenting and family interventions and are intended to decrease stress, improve familial relationships, and indirectly improve child wellness, and these mindfulness-based interventions (MBI) are relatively effective at doing so. However, critical issues remain related to designing effective and useful interventions for school-based and other community practitioners. Specifically, research has not demonstrated clear relationships between parent mindfulness practice increasing generalized mindfulness behaviors (i.e., awareness and acceptance), experiencing subsequent parental stress reduction, and reporting decreased behavior problems in children. The current study examined these relationships between practicing mindfulness and experiencing changes in parents’ mindfulness process, wellbeing, and perceptions of difficult child behavior problems in four mothers. Results showed that mindful practice was related to changes in mindful awareness but not necessarily mindful acceptance. Mindfulness practice elicited changes in parental wellbeing, including the decreased stress and increased happiness. Results did not indicate clarity between mothers' mindful breathing and perceptions of child behavior problems; however, mothers practicing mindfulness may reduce child internalizing problems compared to externalizing problems. These findings raise questions for advancing research, such as investigating single-item scales to measure internal experiences and further exploring relationships between decreasing parental stress and influencing various child behavior problems.

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