Mindful Parenting Decreases Aggression, Noncompliance, and Self-Injury in Children With Autism

Abstract

Parent—child transactions provide an important social context for the development of adaptive and problem behaviors in young children with autism.Teaching parents to develop alternative transactional pathways often leads to positive behavioral patterns in their children.We taught three parents the philosophy and practice of mindfulness in a 12-week course and assessed the outcome of the training on their children's behavior. In addition, the mothers rated satisfaction with their parenting skills and interactions with their children. Results showed that the mothers' mindful parenting decreased their children's aggression, noncompliance, and self-injury and increased the mothers' satisfaction with their parenting skills and interactions with their children.We speculated on the possible reasons for the efficacy of mindful parenting in decreasing the children's problem behaviors without the application of specific, programmed contingencies for the children's behavior.