Mind-mindedness in parents of pre-schoolers: A comparison between clinical and community samples

Abstract

Mind-mindedness relates to parents’ propensity to treat their young children as individuals with minds of their own. Research with community samples has demonstrated impressive findings regarding child development outcomes, leading to a suggestion that mind-mindedness should be considered in clinical interventions. This is the first mind-mindedness study to include parents of children referred to clinical services. A between group design (n=49) was used to investigate whether mind-mindedness differed between parents of a clinical group of pre-school children and parents of a community comparison group and to explore how mind-mindedness related to parental depression and stress, and child difficulties. The findings revealed that mind-mindedness was significantly lower in the clinical sample and was not related to depression in either group. In the clinical group mind-mindedness was related to parenting stress and in the community group it was related to children’s emotional and behavioural difficulties. Overall these findings provide preliminary evidence that mind-mindedness may be an important construct to consider in pre-school clinical interventions.