Stress, Mindful Parenting, and the Transition to Adulthood

Abstract

The 'parenting process' becomes a critical element in child and family development. In this chapter, the author addresses stressful transitions in parenting through a mindfulness model. These transitions are prompted by a variety of stressful life events that tend to arise at different points in the family life cycle. For parents, these events may include pregnancy, birth of a child, divorce, remarriage, loss of job, relocation of job, or care-giving responsibilities for aging parents. For children, these events are often associated with developmental challenges that give rise to a new set of emotional needs. During such transitions, a nurturing social environment that the child experiences as occurring for his/her sake is the optimal context for healthy development. While this idea may be intuitive to parents and researchers, the kind of environment that supports families in the midst of life changes has thus far been difficult to articulate. Utilizing ecological systems theory, the author notes that such a model has held promise as a conceptual framework for describing the kind of environment that incorporates many of these prescribed behaviors for parents, yet this theory is difficult to translate directly into practice and may fall short of capturing the relational complexity of the parent-child bond. This chapter uses a number of related theories to examine variables that, taken together, may be indicators of the kind of environment that is most suitable for effective developmental transitions within families. 'Mindful Parenting' emerges from Mindfulness theory which promotes a skillful way of being present to children and to everyday experiences that result in greater self-awareness and clarity of purpose in communication. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)