A Longitudinal Study On The Impact Of Parental Mindfulness On Adolescent Depressive Symptoms: The Mediating Role Of Attachment Securit

Mindful parenting refers to parenting in which parents incorporate the theoretical and practical principles of mindfulness into their own thoughts,emotions,and behaviors.Parents’ mindful parenting is manifested by focusing on the present moment,acknowledging and noncritically accepting the child’s inner self,seeing things from the child’s perspective,and understanding the child’s thoughts and feelings in certain situations.Depressive symptoms of adolescent include low mood,irritability,feeling worthless and having no hope for the future.The parenting style and concept of parents are important factors affecting the depressive symptoms of adolescent.Inappropriate parenting behaviors make it difficult for children to feel cared for and loved,which increases the risk of depressive symptoms of adolescent.Therefore,it is of great significance to explore the influence of mindful parenting on depressive symptoms of adolescent.Attachment theory provides an important framework for exploring the emotional health of individuals transitioning from childhood to adulthood.It has been proved that mindful parenting can help parents effectively establish trust and close emotional connection in their interactions,and promote secure attachment.The attachment security to parents can effectively prevent and reduce adolescent internalization problems.However,few studies have focused on the mediating role of attachment security between mindful parenting and depressive symptoms of adolescent,and the only relevant studies are mostly cross-sectional designs,unable to fully clarify the directional relationship between variables.In addition,the existing studies on parenting and attachment security are usually comprehensive indicators of parents,and less from the perspective of relationship specificity.It is difficult to clearly distinguish the parenting styles of fathers and mothers and the potential same or different effects of father-child and mother-child attachment security.Therefore,this study adopts a cross-sectional and longitudinal design to investigate the longitudinal mediating effects of father-child attachment security and mother-child attachment security on the prediction of depressive symptoms of adolescent by fathers and mothers’ mindful parenting.First of all,since the existing Mindful Parenting Questionnaire was designed for parental reports,in order to improve the applicability of the measurement to the subjects of the study,the parents’ mindful parenting was reported by the adolescents in this study.In Study 1,300 adolescents aged 11 to 15 were selected as subjects.Through the pre-test and formal test,the Mindful Parenting Questionnaire(Adolescent Report version)was revised,and it was verified that the questionnaire had good reliability and validity,and could be used for follow-up test.Second,to tentatively examine the mediating role of father-child(mother-child)attachment security in adolescent between paternal(maternal)mindful parenting and depressive symptoms of adolescent,and to compare the differences between paternal and maternal variables and the total effect of paternal and maternal mindful parenting on depressive symptoms of adolescent.Study 2used a cross-sectional design to measure paternal and maternal mindful parenting,father-child and mother-child attachment security,and depressive symptoms of adolescent in 702 adolescents aged11 to 15 years.The mediating effect analysis showed that there was a significant positive correlation between father-child(mother-child)mindful parenting and adolescents’ father-child(mother-child)attachment security,and a significant negative correlation between father-child(mother-child)attachment security and depressive symptoms of adolescent.This study tentatively verified the mediating role of father-child(mother-child)attachment security in the relationship between paternal(maternal)mindful parenting and depressive symptoms of adolescent,and there were significant differences between fathers and mothers in both mindful parenting and attachment security.The total effect of maternal mindful parenting on depressive symptoms of adolescent was greater than that of paternal mindful parenting on depressive symptoms of adolescent.Finally,to further explore the predictive relationship between paternal(maternal)mindful parenting and depressive symptoms of adolescent,and to examine the longitudinal mediating role of father-child(mother-child)attachment security.In Study 3,702 participants in Study 2 were followed for one and a half years using a longitudinal design.Cross-lagged panel model analysis showed that paternal(maternal)mindful parenting at the previous time point significantly positively predicted father-child(mother-child)attachment security of adolescent at the later time point,and father-child(mother-child)attachment security of adolescent at the previous time point significantly negatively predicted depressive symptoms of adolescent at the later time point.The longitudinal mediating effect test clearly verified the longitudinal mediating role of father-child(mother-child)attachment security in the prediction of depressive symptoms of adolescent by paternal(maternal)mindful parenting.In summary,this study fully explored the relationship between mindful parenting,adolescents’ attachment security and depressive symptoms,proving that attachment security plays a longitudinal mediating role in the prediction of depressive symptoms of adolescent by mindful parenting,and the mediating models of paternal and maternal variables are valid.The results of this study are helpful to enlightening parents to pay attention to the importance of active parenting and avoid the adverse consequences such as adolescent depression caused by negative parenting behaviors,so as to correctly cultivate and guide the growth of adolescent and promote their physical and mental health development.