Parenting Impacts from a Mindfulness-Based Pilot Intervention for Families Facing Pediatric Chronic Pain

Objectives The current project examines parenting style and common psychological stressors specific to parenting behavior reported among parents of an adolescent with chronic pain. Parents provide crucial pragmatic and emotional supports for adolescents’ engagement in healthcare behaviors and may also experience significant emotional distress around caring for adolescents with chronic pain. Families coping with pediatric chronic health conditions often report more negative family dynamics, characterized by simultaneously unresponsive and demanding parenting behaviors, than families with healthy children. Methods Participating parents completed the “Parents as Coping Coaches (PaCC),” 3-session, group intervention developed to directly support parent individual needs and parenting behavior. Results Findings suggest that parent participation in the newly developed PaCC intervention was significantly related to reductions in parenting experiences associated with caring for the adolescent and parent-reported authoritarian parenting style. Conclusions Significant differences seen pre- to post-intervention suggest that parent experiences and parenting behaviors are amenable intervention targets.