Mindfulness Outcomes of a Parenting Intervention for Military Families

Reintegration after military deployment is a significant family stressor, and is often characterized by marital and parenting challenges (Khaylis, Polusny, Erbes, Gewirtz, & Rath, 2011) and difficulties with emotions such as anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress. Emotion regulation within the family context is particularly important for military families because deployment-related stress might affect parents’ regulation capabilities by encouraging a coping style characterized by emotional suppression or experiential avoidance (Vujanovic, Niles, Pietrefesta, Schmertz, & Potter, 2011). Indeed, preliminary findings from our study of military families suggested deployed individuals reported more difficulties in emotion regulation than civilians.

Emotion socialization is the process by which parents influence the understanding, expression, and experience of emotions in children (Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998). A wealth of research has demonstrated that children of parents who label, validate, and help children manage their emotions show more emotion regulation abilities, better academic achievement and less internalizing problems than children of parents who dismiss or invalidate emotions (Gottman, Katz, & Hooven, 1996).

ADAPT is a randomized control trial of a 14-week parenting program for reintegrating families. To our knowledge, ADAPT is the first parent training intervention to address emotion socialization in military families. First, the program teaches parents to identify their own and their children’s emotions, and provides training in behavioral strategies to respond to those emotions. Second, the program provides mindfulness strategies that encourage parents to be more fully present in their family life, particularly in emotionally evocative situations. A variety of mindfulness practices are introduced and parents are encouraged to practice the strategies in their daily lives.

We used the Five Factor Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ; Baer et al., 2008) to assess mindfulness. Parents (N=87) in 54 families were assessed prior to being assigned to the treatment (N=48) or control conditions (N=39), and about 8 months later. We used hierarchical linear modeling to assess change in mindfulness from pre- to post-test. After controlling for parent and child demographics we found a significant positive effect of the intervention on two components of mindfulness: describing feelings t(27) = 2.13, p < .05 and acting with awareness t(28) = 2.36, p < .05. We hypothesize that improvements in these fundamental emotional awareness skills can support parents’ positive socialization of children’s emotions. Future studies will examine changes in mindfulness as a mediator of positive parenting skills and improved child outcomes.