Emerging Adults’ Experience of Mindful Parenting: Distinct Associations With Their Dispositional and Interpersonal Mindfulness, Self-Compassion, and Adjustment

Abstract

Experiencing mindful parenting has been positively associated with youth’s dispositional mindfulness and self-compassion, which in turn, relates to better emotional adjustment. However, mindful parenting could also relate to interpersonal mindfulness, which is another form of mindfulness that has had a unique relation with social adjustment. In this study, 458 emerging adults (age of 17–21 years) completed a survey to report their current experience of mindful parenting, dispositional mindfulness, self-compassion, interpersonal mindfulness, emotional (general well-being, social anxiety) and social adjustment (friendship quality, prosocial behavior, conflict negotiation). Regression models testing direct and indirect associations showed that mindful parenting was directly but also indirectly associated with emerging adults’ emotional adjustment via dispositional mindfulness and self-compassion (not interpersonal mindfulness), and indirectly associated with social adjustment via interpersonal mindfulness (not dispositional mindfulness or self-compassion). Findings have implications for theory and practice within the areas of mindfulness, parenting, and emerging adults’ emotion regulation and personal adjustment.