Parents are people too: The importance of parental psychological flexibility.

Abstract

The target article (Kirby, 2016) proposes that we add the promotion of mindful, psychologically flexible, pro-social values to positive parenting programs. These programs intend to create more nurturing environments through the goal of promoting and reinforcing pro-social behavior, minimizing coercion and aggression, and reducing opportunities for problem behavior. This goal, the article argues, will be supported by greater emphasis on mindfulness and compassion. We agree, although we hope our comments might add to the precision and scope of this recommendation.Nurturing environments do not necessarily come naturally. As the target article notes, parenting is much more than simply addressing bad behaviors. The article argues that mindfulness will help parents avoid being reactive, harsh, or impatient and will increase the likelihood that they notice opportunities to reinforce positive steps. Compassion, it is said, will promote acting in line with parenting values, rather than reacting with parental behavior that is punitive or dismissive. The article suggests that both of these processes will be sup-ported by a greater emphasis on psychological flexibil

Adolescent and Parent Experiences of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Pediatric Chronic Pain: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

“…Future research using other research designs could explore whether adding a specific values-component would be beneficial in other support programs currently in use for parents of young people with chronic pain [72] and whether changes in parent protectiveness can be attributed to values-based work specifically. Targeting parent psychological flexibility has been suggested to be of importance for increasing both child and parent functioning [26,32,73,74,75,76]. The present study extends these prior quantitative findings by adding parent descriptions of how some parents describe increased psychological flexibility, i.e., how treatment helped them engage in long-term effective behaviors to support their children in the presence of their own worry and distress.…”

Mental health, broad autism phenotype and psychological inflexibility in mothers of young children with autism spectrum disorder in Australia: A cross-sectional survey

“…However, while these similarities exist, the BAP is considered a neurological difference that would be expected to persist across an individual's lifespan while psychological inflexibility is a skill that can be changed and varies according to context. By targeting psychological inflexibility, the mental health of mothers of children may be improved, which has the potential to improve maternal and family well-being as well as have flow-on effects to improve the parenting experience, parental confidence and child developmental outcomes (Bernard-Bonnin et al, 2004;Leeming & Hayes, 2016). These findings suggest that maternal mental health could be supported by targeting psychological inflexibility.…”

“…Psychological inflexibility predicts symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress in mothers of children with chronic health and developmental diagnoses including autism (Sairanen et al, 2018), mothers of children with cerebral palsy (Whittingham et al, 2013), and parents of children undergoing cancer treatment (Cernvall et al, 2016); psychological distress in parents of children with acquired brain injury ; and bonding in parents of preterm infants (Evans et al, 2012). Targeting psychological flexibility is effective in improving psychological outcomes (Blackledge & Hayes, 2006;Joekar et al, 2016;Lunsky et al, 2018) and also extends to improving maternal and family well-being (Leeming & Hayes, 2016), disagreements between parents and parenting confidence (Brown, Whittingham, Boyd, et al, 2015).…”

Can Behavior Analysis Help Us Understand and Reduce Racism? A review of the Current Literature

“…Self-as-context refers to deictic responding, or the time and location context from which a speaker is behaving (McHugh, Stewart, & Almada, 2019). It is about perspective taking regarding our behavior (Leeming & Hayes, 2016). In other words, we can observe ourselves and our experiences separate from thinking, remembering, planning, and other covert verbal behaviors.…”

“…Mindfulness is defined in ACTr as "a skill set that allows one to contact fully the current environmental and personal context with open and flexible awareness" (Leeming & Hayes, 2016, p. 159), and it involves acceptance, defusion, the present moment, and perspective taking of self. ACTr practitioners also consider being present and engaging in perspective taking of self as processes associated with behavior change when combined with values and committed action (Leeming & Hayes, 2016).…”