Background
As the positive psychology movement has gained momentum, parenting researchers have increasingly shown interest in mindful parenting. Although several mindful parenting scales have been developed to date, to our knowledge, there is no validated measure of children’s perceptions of mindful parenting. The Mindful Parenting Inventories for Parents (MPIP) and Children (MPIC) aim to measure parent and child perspectives of mindful parenting, respectively.
Hypotheses/Research Questions
The purpose of the current study was to develop and pilot the initial MPIP and MPIC.
Sample Characteristics and Sample Size
The pilot samples consisted of 44 parents (aged between 29-65 years) and 33 children (aged between 11-16 years).
Design
We created initial items for the inventories based on theoretical definitions of mindful parenting as well as existing scales considering the utility and feasibility of both parent and child report. Both subjective, such as face validity, and objective methods, such as factor analysis, were used to refine the new inventories.
Results
Primary results supported five sub-scales for the MPIP and MPIC, each with satisfactory internal consistency and test-retest reliability. Parent-reported or child-reported mindful parenting was not related to child gender, parent and child age or parental education levels. There were weak-to-strong correlations between MPIP and MPIC subscales, as is common for cross-rater reports of parent-child relationships.
Scientific Contribution
MPIP and MPIC show promise as useful inventories for assessing mindful parenting from both parent and child perspectives. This study is the first to develop parallel parent and child inventories to assess mindful parenting. As such, the resulting measures, MPIP and MPIC, are the first scales that enable direct comparison of parent and child perceptions of mindful parenting in the home environment. These new inventories will allow crucial investigations into the potentially different roles of parent and child perspectives for child psychological wellbeing.