Mindful Parenting in Mothers of Children in Childhood and Adolescence With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Identifying Possible Antecedents

Purpose Mindful parenting is a set of parenting practices based on the application of mindfulness to the context of the parent- child relationship that is relevant for parents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) children (Beer in Mindfulness 4(2): 102–112, 2013). Interest in the identification of correlates of mindful parenting is growing because it could allow to account for variability in parenting practices. Self-determination theory provides a relevant theoretical framework to explain this variability; for this reason, this study examines the relationship between autonomous and controlled motivation, resilience, and mindful parenting in parents with ASD children and adolescents. Methods 73 mothers of ASD children in childhood, and 67 mothers of ASD children in adolescence completed measures of the Parenting Motivation Scale (Jungert in J Child Family Stud 24(7): 1932–1942, 2014), the Resilience Scale (Girtler in Clin Exp Rheumatol 28(5): 669–678, 2010), and the Bangor Mindful Parenting Scale (Jones in APAPsycTests 10:514, 2014). Multi-group analysis of a structural equation model showed that the structural associations weren’t invariant across the two groups. Results The results suggest that in both groups autonomous motivation is associated with resilience and resilience is associated with mindful parenting. Furthermore, in the younger age group, autonomous motivation is positively associated with mindful parenting, while controlled motivation is negatively associated. Conclusion Using SDT, this study provides relevant and innovative data for research on mindful parenting in families with ASD children, identifying some possible antecedents at different developmental stages of the children.