Effectiveness of Mindful Parenting Training to Mothers of Children with Attention Deficit- Hyperactivity Disorder to Improve the Internalized Problems of Mothers and Reduce the Externalized Problems of Their Children

Considering the prevalence of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children and its respective psychological problems for their parents and in particular their mothers, the present study investigated the effectiveness of training mindful parenting on improving internalizing behaviors of mothers (e.g. Depression and Anxiety) and externalizing behaviors (Rule Breaking Behavior, Aggressive Behavior) of their kids.  

A quasi-experimental study with pre-test and post-test design and control group was carried out on 30 mothers whose children were diagnosed with ADHD chosen through convenient sampling and randomly divided into experimental and control groups. Depending on the exit criteria for absence in more than one session, the group experienced a decline and the results were analyzed for 24 mothers. The research instruments were CSI-4 (1994), the child behavior check list (CBCL) for Parents (1991), and hospital anxiety and depression questionnaire (1983). Training mothers with mindfulness approach was accomplished in eight 3-hour sessions. At the end, both control and experimental groups completed the above-mentioned questionnaires as post-test. The collected data were analyzed using covariance, added scores, and independent samples t-test.

The results revealed the effectiveness of mindful parenting methods on decreasing mother’s anxiety and depression (P<0/05) and also the effectiveness of the method on decreasing children’s externalizing problem (P<0/05) in the experimental group in comparison with the control group.

Generally, findings showed that mindful parenting method will decrease the mother’s internalizing problems (Depression and Anxiety) and children’s externalizing problem (Rule Breaking Behavior, Aggressive Behavior).