A scoping review of the role of mindful parenting in youth’s emotional, behavioral, and social adjustment, coping, and emotion regulation Article Swipe
YOU?
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· 2025
· Open Access
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· DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/01650254251381983
· OA: W4414993076
Mindful parenting involves parents’ moment-to-moment awareness during parent–child interactions and nonjudgemental acceptance of children. There is not yet an extensive history of research on the impact of mindful parenting on youth’s adjustment and well-being, but the last decade has seen an increase in attention. This growth suggests the need for a scoping review to summarize the current state of the research, to identify research gaps, and to suggest future directions for research. Electronic databases were searched, which identified 31 studies of mindful parenting and youth’s (aged 12 to 25 years) emotional, behavioral, or social adjustment; coping with stress; and/or emotion regulation. Mindful parenting was associated with better youth adjustment in most studies, including fewer emotional and behavioral problems (23 and 20 studies, respectively), and better well-being (three studies) and life satisfaction (three studies), with parenting and youth adjustment reported by parents, youth, or both. Only one study reported associations of mindful parenting with better social adjustment, and two studies found associations with more adaptive and positive coping and/or emotional regulation. Twenty-one studies investigated indirect pathways, with mindful parenting related to youth adjustment through numerous youth characteristics, parent characteristics, or relationship factors. Four studies included tests of whether the link between mindful parenting and youth’s adjustment differed depending on a third variable (e.g., gender). Two studies found significant moderation, but the effects were small and sometimes counterintuitive. There was very little replication across studies. Future research could draw upon this review to develop a model that links mindful parenting to youth’s adjustment, while considering other aspects of parenting, as well as parent and child characteristics as precursors, covariates, and mediators.
