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The Experiences in Close Relationships-Relationship Structures questionnaire (ECR-RS) is one of the most recent measures of adult attachment. This instrument provides a contextual assessment of attachment-related anxiety and avoidance by measuring these dimensions in various close relationships (mother, father, partner, friend). To further explore its psychometric properties and cross-cultural adequacy, this study presents the validation of the ECR-RS in a sample of Portuguese community individuals (N = 236). The Portuguese version showed adequate reliability and construct validity. The original 2-factor structure was confirmed through confirmatory factor analysis. The ECR-RS is a psychometrically robust measure of attachment, representing an important advance in the measurement of adult attachment.

There is some evidence that mindful parenting, a parenting approach that involves the practice of bringing mindful awareness to the parent-child relationship, is associated with several positive psychosocial outcomes in adolescents. However, only a few studies have investigated the mechanisms that may underlie that association. This study explores whether the link between mindful parenting and adolescents' well-being is mediated by adolescents' attachment representations, self-compassion and mindfulness skills. The sample comprised 563 parent-child dyads (95.6% mothers). Adolescents (61.5% girls) had a mean age of 14.26 years (SD = 1.66, range = 12-20). Parents completed a measure of mindful parenting, and adolescents completed measures of attachment representations, self-compassion, mindfulness, and well-being. Mindful parenting was indirectly associated with adolescents' self-compassion and mindfulness through a more secure perception of the relationship with the parents, and was indirectly associated with adolescents' well-being through perceived attachment security, self-compassion and mindfulness. The path model was invariant across stages of adolescence but some relations in the model varied across gender. Self-compassion and mindfulness seem to develop within a parent-child relationship characterized by affection, self-regulation, and mindful awareness. These two resources, along with mindful parenting and positive representations of the parent-child relationship, are associated with adolescents' well-being.

The stress parents feel in their parenting roles and the ways they relate to themselves in difficult or distressing situations, such as with self-compassion, are influenced by their attachment orientations and may account for the well-known association between the quality of parents' attachment to their own parents and their children's developmental outcomes. We explored the association between self-compassion and parenting stress and their mediating role in the link between mothers' attachment orientations and children's quality of life (QoL). A total of 171 family dyads composed of a child/adolescent aged 8-18 years and the child's mother participated in the study. Mothers completed self-report measures of attachment toward their own mother (ECR-RS), self-compassion (SELFCS), and parenting stress (PSI). The children completed a measure of QoL (KIDSCREEN-10). The current study showed that mothers' attachment to their own mother was indirectly associated with their child's QoL through self-compassion and parenting stress. Specifically, higher levels of attachment-related anxiety and avoidance among mothers toward their own mother were associated with worse children's QoL through lower levels of mothers' self-compassion and higher levels of parenting stress. These results reveal an important pathway linking mothers' attachment to their child's QoL and underline the importance of designing parenting programs aimed at reducing parenting stress that simultaneously help parents to become more compassionate toward themselves.