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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2025 Feb 1.
Published in final edited form as: J Fam Psychol. 2023 Sep 11;38(1):71–81. doi: 10.1037/fam0001152

Linking Observing and Nonreactivity Mindfulness to Parenting: Moderated Direct and Indirect Effects via Inhibitory Control

Na Zhang 1, Jingchen Zhang 2, Abigail H Gewirtz 3, Kirby Deater-Deckard 4
PMCID: PMC10924155  NIHMSID: NIHMS1933240  PMID: 37695328

Abstract

To disentangle the effects of key dimensions of dispositional mindfulness on parenting, the current study tests the hypotheses that parental Nonreactivity moderates the association between Observing and effective parenting behaviors, and that parental inhibitory control mediates the relationship between Observing and parenting depending on levels of Nonreactivity. The sample consists of 294 fathers (95.9% deployed) and 313 mothers (81.5% non-deployed) from 336 military families with a child aged between 4–13 years at baseline. Parents reported Observing and Nonreactivity at baseline using the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and completed a computerized Go/No-Go task for assessing inhibitory control at baseline and 1-year follow-up. Families completed a series of in-home interaction tasks at baseline and 2-year follow-up, and effective parenting behaviors were observed and coded using a theory-driven, empirically validated coding system. Results showed that when fathers reported low Nonreactivity, the association between Observing and effective parenting behaviors 2 years later was negative, but this association became positive when fathers reported high Nonreactivity. Fathers’ Observing was associated with decreased inhibitory control 1 year later when they reported low (vs. high) Nonreactivity, whereas mothers’ Observing was associated with increased inhibitory control 1 year later when they reported high (vs. low) Nonreactivity. The hypothesized effect of inhibitory control as a mediator was not found. Understanding specificity in the effects of dispositional mindfulness dimensions on parenting behaviors will drive effective and efficient designs of mindful parenting interventions. Future research should use dismantling experimental designs to test the synergistic effects of Observing and Nonreactivity in parents.

Keywords: dispositional mindfulness, Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, inhibitory control, Monitor and Acceptance Theory, parenting

There has been a growing body of research applying mindfulness interventions to parent populations, and cumulative evidence supports its small effects in the improvements of parents’ and children’s mental health (Burgdorf et al., 2019; Fernandes et al., 2022; Xie et al., 2021). Prior work has also suggested that incorporating mindfulness training into an existing evidence-based family intervention might have additive benefits to magnify the intervention’s efficacy by strengthening parenting (Coatsworth et al., 2015). Given the lack of effects of mindfulness training on observed parenting outcomes (e.g., Altmaier & Maloney, 2007; Chaplin et al., 2021), knowledge that informs specific components of mindfulness training is critical for future research to evaluate mindfulness training in parent-child relationship contexts. Such knowledge will also guide clinical practice because diverse intervention approaches to mindfulness training have yielded differential effectiveness in increasing specific components (i.e., dimensions) of dispositional mindfulness that are thought to be some of the putative targets of mindfulness interventions (Quaglia et al., 2016). To advance this research area, we drew on Monitor and Acceptance Theory and analyzed secondary data from a longitudinal study of military families to answer two research questions regarding the relations between specific components of parental dispositional mindfulness and parenting. The first question is whether two key components of dispositional mindfulness, Observing and Nonreactivity, would show interactive effects on effective parenting behaviors two years later (Figure 1a). The second question is whether parental inhibitory control, a theoretical mediator, would explain how Observing and Nonreactivity might have the interactive effects on effective parenting behaviors (Figure 1b).

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

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The hypothesized models.

Notes: Figure 1a is a moderation model testing the effects of Observing on parenting, moderated by Nonreactivity. Figure 1b is a moderated mediation model testing the indirect effect of Observing on parenting via mediated effect parental inhibitory control, moderated by Nonreactivity.

Observing and Nonreactivity Mindfulness: Moderated Direct Effect on Parenting

The focus on Observing and Nonreactivity mindfulness is informed by Monitor and Acceptance Theory (Lindsay and Creswell, 2017; Lindsay et al., 2018a, 2018b), which explicates that the mechanisms of mindfulness operate through an interaction effect of two essential tenets of mindfulness. The first tenet is monitoring, which refers to the ongoing observation of moment-to-moment experience in the present. The monitoring component maps onto the Observing subscale of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), a commonly used scale that assesses dispositional mindfulness (Baer et al., 2008). The second tenet of mindfulness is acceptance, which refers to a nonjudgmental, nonreactive attitude during the observation of momentary experience, to allow all pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral experience to come and go. The nonreactivity maps onto the Nonreactivity or Nonjudging subscales of FFMQ, though prior research showed that Nonreactivity, but not Nonjudging, was predictive of parents’ parenting efficacy and parenting stress (Burke et al., 2020). Thus, we chose to examine Nonreactivity instead of Nonjudging in relation to parenting behaviors.

According to Monitor and Acceptance Theory (Lindsay and Creswell, 2017), high levels of both Observing and Nonreactivity, or the interaction between the two components, are key to explaining the salutary benefits of mindfulness. In contrast, individuals who only pay attention to their inner experiences (i.e., report high Observing) without an attitude of acceptance towards their experiences (i.e., report low Nonreactivity) may show poor psychological outcomes. Several studies have found that when individuals endorsed low Nonreactivity, Observing was positively associated with mental health problems, but when individuals endorsed high Nonreactivity, the direction of the association between Observing and mental health problems was reversed such that higher Observing was related to lower mental health problems (Barnes & Lynn, 2010; Desrosiers et al., 2014; Eisenlohr-Moul et al., 2012). These theoretical and empirical studies suggest a cross-over interaction effect of Observing and Nonreactivity on psychological outcomes with Nonreactivity moderating associations between Observing and psychological outcomes. Evidence of such interaction effects between Observing and Nonreactivity have also been found on physical outcomes; one study with healthy adults found that Nonreactivity moderated the relation between Observing and interleukin-6, an indicator of inflammation immune response (Tomfohr et al., 2015).

The current study extends this area of research by testing the moderation effect of Nonreactivity on the relation between Observing and parenting behaviors. Theoretically, mindful parents have the capacity to bring a sense of nonjudgmental awareness of the self and their child to their parent-child relationships, which allow the parent to approach their child and the situation responsively and constructively with effective parenting behaviors (Dumas, 2005; Duncan et al., 2009). Such capacity involves both Observing and Nonreactivity, because when parents pay attention to the moment-to-moment changing demands during parent-child interactions, which can be unpleasant, they must refrain from over-reacting to their own thoughts and feelings and choose positive parenting behaviors. If parents get caught up in their own emotions or stress, they lose touch with what their child and the situation need, and it is likely that their reactivity will lead to habituated negative parenting behaviors including withdrawal, disengagement, rejection, or coercion.

Previous studies examined specific components of parental dispositional mindfulness such as Observing and Nonreactivity in relation to specific parenting dimensions (Bird et al., 2021; Burke et al., 2020), but none have tested moderation effects between the two and none have used a global effective parenting measure obtained from family interaction observations. Interestingly, in a cross-sectional study with mostly mothers, Bird et al. (2021) found that neither Observing nor Nonreactivity was related to the ways parent-child dyads discussed a family conflict, which included some parenting dimensions such as verbal validation or opposition. Such null findings and the Monitor and Acceptance Theory suggest that parental Observing and Nonreactivity may work interactively rather than independently in their associations with parenting behaviors.

Mediated Effects via Parental Inhibitory Control

In addition to the moderated direct effect, it would be also important to understand how the two specific components of dispositional mindfulness influence the ways parents interact with their child behaviorally. Research has found that dispositional mindfulness, especially the Nonreactivity component, is related to cognitive control (Cásedas et al., 2022); therefore, we hypothesized that parental cognitive control may mediate the (moderated) effect of Observing on parenting depending on levels of Nonreactivity, as shown in Figure 1b. We used a Go/No-Go computer task that assesses inhibitory control, which is a specific cognitive function that has been linked to parenting behaviors (Shaffer & Obradović, 2017). Inhibitory control supports goal-driven behaviors while inhibiting responses to irrelevant internal or external stimuli (Berkman et al., 2012). It is hypothesized that inhibitory control would be linked to effective parenting (path b, Figure 1b), because parents’ adaptive responses during interactions with their child (e.g., attentiveness, warmth, and consistent discipline) are influenced by their capacities to inhibit other maladaptive habituated responses (e.g., withdrawal, rejection, or harshness). Indeed, theories and empirical research show that parents with poor cognitive control tend to have poor planning, problem-solving, and decision-making, which relate to negative parenting behaviors such as withdrawal, rejection, and harsh, rigid, inconsistent discipline (Chary et al., 2020; Crandall et al., 2015; Deater-Deckard & Bell, 2017; Deater-Deckard et al., 2012).

Furthermore, in the moderated mediation model we applied Monitor and Acceptance Theory (Lindsay & Creswell, 2017) to parental inhibitory control. That is, Observing mindfulness is expected to relate to parental inhibitory control depending on levels of Nonreactivity (path a3, Figure 1b). For example, Anicha et al. (2012) found that Observing was associated with visual perception during a working memory task, while Nonreactivity was associated with inhibitory control, measured as performance in an affectively neutral color-word Stroop task, suggesting that Nonreactivity may be more closely associated with inhibitory control than Observing, but the study, like many other studies in the literature, did not test interaction effects between Observing and Nonreactivity. Observing may have a negative effect on inhibitory control for individuals with lower levels of Nonreactivity, who tend to engage in ruminative thinking, worry, or “brooding” (Rude et al., 2007), which link to poor inhibitory control. On the other hand, the synergy of high Observing and high Nonreactivity, indicating high levels of overall dispositional mindfulness, is expected to influence inhibitory control at an optimal level.

Studies that formally test the mediated effect of dispositional mindfulness via inhibitory control are scant. Illustratively, one study by Desrosiers et al. (2014) found that cognitive processes such as self-reported rumination, reappraisals, worry mediated the effects of dispositional mindfulness to depression and anxiety. In this cross-sectional study, dispositional mindfulness was measured by the total FFMQ score, instead of specific components and the interaction between the components. The current study is the first to use multi-method longitudinal data to test Monitor and Acceptance Theory in family relationship context, to clarify the moderated mediation effect of specific components of parental dispositional mindfulness on effective parenting behaviors via parental inhibitory control.

The Current Study

The deployment to war of a military parent is a significant family stressor, and the negative impacts on parenting and children’s adjustment can last well after the parent returns (Gewirtz et al., 2020). Parents who have been exposed to traumatic or stressful life events are more likely to engage in negative parent-child interactions and ineffective parenting (Deater-Deckard, 1998). Because parenting behaviors are key to child adjustment and mindfulness training is a promising tool to help military families during reintegration (Gliske et al., 2019), understanding how Observing and Nonreactivity mindfulness may be interactively associated with prospective changes in parenting behaviors via parental inhibitory control as a theoretical mediator will have implications for mindfulness intervention programming for this population.

Effective parenting refers to global positive parenting behaviors such as positive involvement with children, problem-solving, supervision, reinforcement, and low levels of coercive parenting (Forgatch & Patterson, 2010). Drawing on secondary data from a multi-wave longitudinal study of post-deployed military families, we tested the models separately in fathers (mostly deployed) and mothers (mostly non-deployed) because the relations of dispositional mindfulness to inhibitory control and parenting behaviors might show differently in the two populations due to gender and deployment status, although we did not have hypotheses regarding the differences between mothers and fathers because of the lack of relevant studies testing the hypothesized moderation and mediation. In addition, existing evidence-based mindfulness interventions are individual-based rather than couple-based so revealing the intrapersonal processes may point to useful clinical implications. Nevertheless, given that the majority of the sample were mothers and fathers from the same families, we conducted a supplemental analysis to see if the conclusions for mothers and fathers remain consistent when controlling for the other parent’s dispositional mindfulness, inhibitory control, and parenting.

Our hypotheses are as follows:

H1. Nonreactivity would moderate the effect of Observing on effective parenting behaviors 2 years later such that among parents with low levels of Nonreactivity, Observing would be negatively associated with effective parenting 2 years later, while among parents with high levels of Nonreactivity, Observing would be positively associated with effective parenting (Figure 1a). H2. Nonreactivity would moderate the effect of Observing on parental inhibitory control 1 year later, and inhibitory control would be associated with effective parenting 1 year later. In other words, the moderated effect of Observing on effective parenting depending on levels of Nonreactivity would be mediated by parental inhibitory control (Figure 1b).

Participants

The sample, recruited between 2010 to 2016 for a large study of a preventive intervention program designed to improve parenting and child adjustment in post-deployed military families, consists of 294 fathers and 313 mothers from 336 families. Of the 336 families participating in the study, 271 families had two parents participating and 65 families had one parent (23 families included only the father, 42 families included only the mother) participating in the study. The families had at least one parent deployed to recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and at least one child between the ages of 4 to 13 living in the same home. Participating children of the study were on average 8.39 years (SD = 2.52) and about half were female (53.6%). Families had an average of 2.31 (SD = .96) children living in the same household.

Fathers were on average 37.76 years old (SD = 6.54), mostly married (87.1%), with average length of marriage being 9.75 years (SD = 5.32). Fathers reported being White (86.4%), African American (4.4%), Asian (2.4%), Native American (0.3%), Pacific Islander (0.3%), or multi-racial (2.4%). The majority (89.1%) were non-Hispanic. Only 8.4% of the fathers completed a GED or high school diploma, 26.5% completed some college, 17.4% obtained an Associate’s degree, 35.2% completed a 4-year college degree, and 12.6% obtained a Master’s or higher professional degree. Fathers reported annual household income was mostly in the middle-to-upper class range, with 6.3% reporting under $30,000, 24.9% between $30,000 to $59,999, 31.9% between $60,000 to $89,999, and 36.8% above $90,000. Most fathers had been deployed (95.9%), an average of 1.96 times since 2001 (SD = 1.14). Over a third of the fathers (32.3%) had been deployed for a cumulative length of more than 25 months, and a little over half (55%) had been deployed for 19–24 months.

Mothers were on average 35.69 years old (SD = 5.89), mostly married (87.9%). Mothers’ reported annual household income was mostly in the middle-to-upper class range, with 9.8% reporting under $30,000, 31.7% between $30,000 to $59,999, 27.5% between $60,000 to $89,999, and 31.0% above $90,000. Mothers reported being White (91.4%), African American (1.6%), Asian (1.0%), Native American (0.3%), Pacific Islander (0.3%), or multi-racial (2.2%). The majority (93.3%) were non-Hispanic. Only a minority of the mothers had been deployed (18.5%), on average 1.33 times since 2001 (SD = .78). More than half (54.5%) of the deployed mothers had been deployed for less than 12 months in total, and 36.4% of the deployed mothers had been deployed for 13–24 months.

Procedure

All procedures were approved by the University of Minnesota’s Institutional Review Board. Before the study was conducted, written informed consent was obtained from all adult participants. Children provided assent while their parent provided written consent. Parents were recruited using strategies including presentations at pre-deployment and reintegration events, a targeted mailing from the local Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and social media. Interested families completed an online survey to screen for eligibility. If eligible, parents completed a questionnaire battery online and a home-based assessment before they were randomly assigned into an intervention or control condition. Families were assessed at baseline, 1-year, and 2-year follow-ups (there was also a 6-month short-term follow-up, which is not used in this study).

Families in the intervention condition received a 14-week group-based, web-enhanced parent training program, and prior studies have reported the effects of the intervention on parenting (aggregated between mothers and fathers) at 1-year (Gewirtz et al., 2018). The intervention provides behavioral parenting skills based on the Parent Management Training – Oregon model (Forgatch & Patterson, 2010) as well as emotion socialization skills (emotion coaching and low dose mindfulness practices (see Gewirtz et al., 2018). In the current analysis, intervention condition is treated as a control variable, because multi-group comparison analyses showed that the path estimates for the associations of interests did not significantly differ across the intervention and control group.

Measures

Independent variable – Observing was measured at baseline by the Observing subscale of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ; Baer et al., 2006). The FFMQ is a validated and widely used instrument for assessing dispositional mindfulness. The Observing subscale (8 items) assesses one’s capacities to observe inner experience of feelings, thoughts, and sensations. Examples of the items include: “When I take a shower or bath, I stay alert to the sensations of water on my body”, “I pay attention to sensations, such as the wind in my hair or sun on my face”, and “I notice the smells and aromas of things”. Each item was rated on a 1 (“Never or very rarely true”) to 5 (“Very often or always true”) scale. Higher scores indicate higher levels of Observing mindfulness. Cronbach’s αs were .819 and .818 in mothers and fathers, respectively.

Moderator – Nonreactivity was measured at baseline by the Nonreactivity to Inner Experience subscale of the FFMQ. The Nonreactivity subscale (7 items) assesses one’s capacities to refrain from impulsive reactions to one’s inner experiences. Examples of the items include: “I perceive my feelings and emotions without having to react to them”, “I watch my feelings without getting lost in them”, “When I have distressing thoughts or images, I ‘step back’ and am aware of the thought or image without getting taken over by it”. Similar to the Observing subscale, each item was rated on a 1 (“Never or very rarely true”) to 5 (“Very often or always true”) scale. Higher scores indicate higher levels of Nonreactivity mindfulness. Cronbach’s αs were .742 and .746 in mothers and fathers, respectively.

Mediator – Inhibitory control deficit was assessed via a computerized Go/No-Go task (Braver et al., 2001) administered at baseline and 1-year during in-home assessments. Participants were presented with a series of stimulus letters on screen once at a time for 250 ms, and the interstimulus interval was 1000 ms. Participants were asked to use their dominant hand to press a button each time a letter flashed on the screen (the “Go” condition), but when an “X” appeared, they were asked to not press the button (the “No-Go” condition). A total of 165 stimuli were shown with 33 No-Go trials, and the final scores were based on the number of commission errors (ranging from 0 to 33). Higher scores indicate poorer inhibitory control.

Dependent variable – Effective parenting behavior was assessed through observational methods. Each family participated in a series of 5-minute family interaction tasks. Related to the effective parenting behavioral coding, for two-parent families, they completed 8 tasks: three dyadic/triadic problem-solving tasks, two triadic teaching tasks, two dyadic deployment discussion tasks, and a triadic monitoring task. For single-parent families, they completed six tasks (two problem-solving tasks and one deployment discussion task). All tasks took approximately 40–60 minutes. For problem-solving tasks, families were presented with a list of common issues that may cause family conflicts and the family selected issues from the list. For deployment discussion tasks, family selected a deployment-related issue that was stressful for them. These tasks were used to code the theoretical dimensions of parenting behaviors by trained coders who were blind to intervention condition using an updated version of the Coder Impressions System (Forgatch et al., 1992). Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were calculated to assess inter-rater reliability for randomly selected coder teams, using two-way random effect models for average coder. The theoretical dimensions of parenting behaviors are as follows. Problem-Solving assessed the quality of parent-child problem solving, putting the solution to use, and extent of resolution (9 items, ICCs in mothers were .911 at T1 and .890 at T4, and ICCs in fathers were .864 at T1 and .895 at T4). Based on the problem-solving tasks, items were rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (untrue) to 5 (very true) and averaged across tasks. Skill Encouragement focused on parents’ capacities to promote child skills through positive reinforcement and scaffolding (8 items, ICCs in mothers were .807 at T1 and .915 at T4, and ICCs in fathers were .658 at T1 and .883 at T4). Based on the teaching tasks, items were rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (untrue) to 5 (very true) and averaged across tasks. Monitoring (i.e., parental supervision) evaluated parents’ supervision of and knowledge about the child’s activities especially in situations when parents are not physically present (4 items, ICCs in mothers were .785 at T1 and .755 at T4, and ICCs in fathers were .726 at T1 and .839 at T4). Based on the monitoring task, items were rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (untrue) to 5 (very true). Positive Involvement evaluated parental warmth, affection, sensitivity, and empathy toward the child (10 items, ICCs in mothers were .838 at T1 and .846 at T4, and ICCs in fathers were .830 at T1 and .889 at T4). Based on all of the family interaction tasks, items were rated on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to 6 (always) and averaged across tasks. Harsh Discipline concerned parents’ use of overly strict, coercive, authoritarian, and inconsistent parenting strategies (8 items, ICCs in mothers were .761 at T1 and .679 at T4, and ICCs in fathers were .823 at T1 and .768 at T4), which is the only reverse-coded scale. Based on all of the family interaction tasks, items were rated on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to 6 (always) and averaged across tasks. A composite score was created by averaging the scores on the five dimensions; higher scores indicate higher levels of effective parenting behaviors.

Covariates.

Several demographic variables were included in the analysis as covariates: intervention condition (control = 0; intervention = 1), annual household income (1 = less than $10k; 2 = $10k - $20k; . . . 15 = $140k – 150k; 16 = more than $150k), parental education (1 = some high school or less; 2= GED; 3 = high school diploma; 4 = some college; 5 = Associate’s degree; 6 = 4-year college degree; 7 = Master’s degree; 8 = doctoral or professional degrees), marital status (0 = not married; 1 = married), months of deployment, child sex (1 = male; 2 = female), and child age.

Analytic plan

The analysis plan was not preregistered. Data, study materials, and analysis code are available from the Corresponding Author upon request. Fathers’ data and mothers’ data were analyzed in separate models following the same steps. Observing and Nonreactivity were mean-centered in each sample and multiplied to create the moderation term (Observing × Nonreactivity). Regression models were computed to test Hypothesis 1 pertaining to the moderation effects of Nonreactivity on the relations of Observing to parenting. Presented in supplemental analysis, we also computed the regression models for fathers and mothers while controlling for the other parent’s baseline mindfulness (i.e., Observing, Nonreactivity, and the interaction between them) and parenting behaviors (i.e., a total of four additional covariates) to see if the conclusions remain consistent. Of note, if the moderation effect on parenting behaviors (c’3 path, Figure 1) is not statistically significant, it is still possible to estimate the mediated effect (MacKinnon et al., 2002). To test Hypothesis 2, A path modeling framework was used to test the moderated mediation models. Joint significance test for mediation (MacKinnon et al., 2002) suggests that a mediation effect is considered evident if the moderation term is associated with the mediator (a3 path) and that the mediator is associated with dependent variable (b path). A more conservative bias-corrected bootstrap method can be used to calculate 95% Confidence Intervals (CIs) to obtain an estimated range of the conditional indirect effects (MacKinnon et al., 2002). For the moderated mediation model, to evaluate the absolute and parsimonious goodness-of-fit indices, we used the Confirmatory Fit Index (CFI), Root Mean Squared Error of Approximation (RMSEA) and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): the specified model is considered as acceptable if the CFI is higher than .90, RMSEA is lower than .06 and the SRMR is lower than .08, (Hu & Bentler, 1999). The Johnson-Neyman technique was used to create visual display and interpret any statistically significant moderation effects. Similarly, presented in supplemental analysis, for each moderated mediation model, we computed additional models by adding the variables of the other parent of the dyad to see if the conclusions remain consistent. To illustrate, in the model testing fathers’ parenting, fathers’ 2-year parenting was additionally regressed on mothers’ baseline mindfulness (i.e., Observing, Nonreactivity, and the interaction between them), mothers’ 1-year inhibitory control, and mothers’ 2-year parenting behaviors, and fathers’ 1-year inhibitory control was additionally regressed on mothers’ baseline mindfulness and mothers’ 1-year inhibitory control.

Missing data.

Missing cases were present on inhibitory control at 1-year follow-up (43.5% of mothers vs. 43.2% of fathers) and parenting behaviors at 2-year follow-up (30.4% of mothers vs. 33.7% of fathers). Other study variables had relatively small number of missing cases (ranging from 0 to 8.5%). Little’s MCAR tests (Little, 1988) were conducted, and the results did not reject the MCAR assumption for mothers’ data (p > .05) but it did reject the assumption for fathers’ data (p <.05). Fathers who had lower levels of education or lower levels of Nonreactivity at baseline were more likely to have missing value on the parenting at 2-year variable. The variables associated with missingness in father data are included in the model as covariates. Full information maximum likelihood (FIML) was applied to the analysis via Mplus 8 (Muthén & Muthén, 2017), which is the recommended method for handling missing data (Enders & Bandalos, 2001).

Results

Descriptive statistics and correlation matrix are shown in Online Supplemental Table 1. All key study variables were normally distributed except for mothers’ inhibitory control at 1-year follow-up, which was slightly skewed (Skewness = 1.31; Kurtosis = 1.98). Bivariate correlations showed that Observing and Nonreactivity were positively correlated (rs = .29 and .27 in mothers and fathers, respectively). The moderation term (Observing × Nonreactivity) was negatively associated with mothers’ parenting at baseline (r = −.14). Nonreactivity was negatively associated with fathers’ inhibitory control at 1-year follow-up (r = −.20) as well as parenting at both baseline and 2-year follow-up (rs = .12 and .18, respectively).

Hypothesis 1: Linking Observing × Nonreactivity to Parenting

Regression models were computed in mothers and fathers separately to test whether Nonreactivity moderated the effect of Observing on effective parenting at 2-year follow-up while controlling for baseline parenting and all covariates (intervention status, income, education, months of deployment, marital status, child age and gender).

Results are presented in Table 1. In father model, the moderation effect was statistically significant (β = .165, p = .010), above and beyond the effects of covariates and stability of parenting from baseline to 2-year follow-up. The region of significance for this moderation effect suggests a cross-over interaction effect (Figure 1; see Online Supplemental Figure 1 for a simple-slope interaction plot). Specifically, fathers’ Observing was negatively associated with effective parenting behaviors 2 years later when fathers reported low levels of Nonreactivity (i.e., approximately 19.6% of the sample who reported 0.87 standard deviation below the mean on the Nonreactivity measure), whereas fathers’ Observing was positively associated with effective parenting behaviors 2 years later when fathers reported high levels of Nonreactivity (i.e., approximately 5.2% of the sample who reported 1.59 standard deviation above the mean on the Nonreactivity measure). For fathers who reported average levels of Nonreactivity, there was no significant association between Observing and effective parenting behaviors 2 years later. This suggests that fathers’ high Observing and high Nonreactivity yielded a positive synergistic effect on changes in effective parenting behaviors over the 2 years study period. Without Nonreactivity, Observing had a negative effect on parenting behaviors 2 years later. Among all covariates, annual household income and child age were significantly associated with parenting at 2-year such that fathers reporting higher income and those with younger children showed greater positive changes in effective parenting behavior over 2 years.

Table 1.

Estimates of moderated direct effects on effective parenting behavior

Independent Variable Fathers’ Effective Parenting Behavior 2-year Mothers’ Effective Parenting Behavior 2-year
B SE β p B SE β p
Observing −0.003 0.004 −.046 .467 0.003 0.004 .051 .425
Nonreactivity 0.010 0.006 .122 .067 −0.004 0.006 −.042 .527
Observing × Nonreactivity 0.002 0.001 .165 .010 0.000 0.001 .038 .565
Intervention Status −0.048 0.042 −.067 .260 −0.004 0.042 −.006 .927
Income 0.025 0.007 .266 .000 0.017 0.007 .183 .008
Parent Education 0.015 0.018 .057 .399 0.051 0.018 .187 .005
Month of Deployment 0.012 0.011 .067 .276 −0.015 0.019 −.053 .429
Marital Status −0.034 0.071 −.031 .633 −0.011 0.069 −.011 .872
Child Age −0.027 0.008 −.200 .001 −0.042 0.009 −.307 .000
Child Gender 0.049 0.042 .071 .240 −0.010 0.041 −.014 .811
Baseline Parenting Behavior 0.323 0.049 .413 .000 0.149 0.055 .178 .006
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Notes. Observing and Nonreactivity were both mean-centered before creating the interaction term.

In mother model, Observing and Nonreactivity were not significantly associated with parenting at 2-year follow-up and there was no moderation effect (ps > .05). Among all covariates, income, parent education, and child age were significantly associated with parenting behaviors such that mothers reporting higher income or education as well as those of younger children showed more positive changes in parenting behaviors over 2 years.

When controlling for the other parent’s variables, the results remained consistent (see Online Supplemental Table 2).

Hypothesis 2: Linking Observing × Nonreactivity to Parenting via Inhibitory Control

Two moderated mediation models were computed separately for fathers and mothers while controlling for baseline levels of the mediator and dependent variable as well as the effects of covariates on the mediator and dependent variable. Covariates were intervention status, income, education, months of deployment, marital status, child age and gender. Both models demonstrated adequate fit (fathers’ model: χ2 = 13.388, df = 13, p > .05, CFI = 0.997, RMSEA = 0.010, SRMR = 0.019; mothers’ model: χ2 = 18.737, df = 13, p > .05, CFI = .958, RMSEA = 0.038, SRMR = 0.021). See Online Supplemental Figure 2a and 3a for model path estimates.

In fathers, the main effects of Observing (B = 0.155, p < .05, β = .141) and Nonreactivity (B = −0.341, p < .001, β = −.223) on deficits of inhibitory control at 1-year follow-up were both statistically significant in the expected directions. There was a marginal a3 path (p = 0.051) such that Nonreactivity moderated the effects of Observing on inhibitory control deficits at 1-year (B = −0.033, p = .051, β = −.136). The association between inhibitory control deficits and parenting (b path) was not statistically significant (p > .05). Controlling for the mediator, the residual direct effect of Observing on effective parenting, moderated by Nonreactivity (c’3 path) was statistically significant (B = 0.002, p < .05, β = .155). Plotting the moderation effect of Observing and Nonreactivity on fathers’ inhibitory control revealed the protective effect of Nonreactivity (Figure 3a; see Online Supplemental Figure 4 for a simple-slope interaction plot). Specifically, fathers’ Observing was associated with increases in deficits of inhibitory control 1 year later only when fathers reported lower Nonreactivity (i.e., approximately 55.1% of the sample who reported scores below Mean + 0.15 SD on the Nonreactivity measure); when fathers reported higher Nonreactivity (above Mean + 0.15 SD), there was no association between Observing and increases in deficits of inhibitory control. This suggests that fathers’ Observing had a negative impact on inhibitory control, but Nonreactivity’s positive impact buffered the negative impact of Observing on inhibitory control. None of the covariates were associated with changes in inhibitory control over 1 year. No evidence was found for the mediation effect of fathers’ inhibitory control for the relation between Observing and effective parenting at various levels of Nonreactivity.

Figure 3.

Figure 3.

Figure 3.

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a. Plot of fathers’ baseline Nonreactivity as a moderator conditioning the unstandardized effect of baseline Observing on inhibitory control deficits at 1-year follow-up.

b. Plot of mothers’ baseline Nonreactivity as a moderator conditioning the unstandardized effect of baseline Observing on inhibitory control deficits at 1-year follow-up.

Notes: The x-axis is Nonreactivity score at baseline (mean-centered). The y-axis is estimated unstandardized coefficient of Observing’s effect on inhibitory control deficits at 1-year follow-up controlling for baseline inhibitory control deficits and covariates. Grey curved lines are 95% Confidence Intervals. Regions with gray shades are of statistical significance.

In mothers, there was a statistically significant interaction effect between Observing and Nonreactivity (a3 path) on deficits of inhibitory control at 1-year follow-up (B = −0.033, p < .05, β = −.137). The association between inhibitory control deficits and parenting (b path) was not statistically significant (p > .05). Plotting the moderation effect of Observing and Nonreactivity on mothers’ inhibitory control revealed a synergistic effect (Figure 3b; see Online Supplemental Figure 5 for a simple-slope interaction plot). Specifically, mothers’ Observing was associated with decreases in deficits of inhibitory control 1 year later when mothers reported higher Nonreactivity (approximately 36% of the sample who reported scores above Mean + 0.49 SD on the Nonreactivity measure); when mothers reported lower Nonreactivity (below Mean + 0.49 SD), there was no association between Observing and inhibitory control. This suggests that mothers’ Observing had a positive effect on inhibitory control 1 year later only when it was combined with Nonreactivity. Unlike the finding in fathers, in the absence of high Nonreactivity, Observing was not associated with inhibitory control. No evidence was found for the mediation effect of mothers’ inhibitory control for the relation between Observing and effective parenting at various levels of Nonreactivity.

We computed two additional moderated mediation models by adding covariates of the other parent of the dyad. For example, in fathers’ model, fathers’ 1-year inhibitory control and 2-year effective parenting were also regressed on mother baseline Observing, Nonreactivity, the interaction between Observing and Nonreactivity, and 1-year inhibitory control, and father’s 2-year effective parenting was also regressed on mother’s 2-year effective parenting. The conclusions remain consistent for both fathers and mothers (see Online Supplemental Figure 2b and 3b).

Discussion

This study finds that Observing and Nonreactivity – often treated as equal dimensions adding to a total score of dispositional mindfulness – were interactively associated with fathers’ (but not mothers’) effective parenting and both fathers’ and mothers’ inhibitory control over time. For fathers, who are mostly deployed in the current sample, Observing in the absence of Nonreactivity was detrimental for fathers’ inhibitory control and effective parenting, whereas Observing in the presence of Nonreactivity was beneficial for fathers’ effective parenting. In mothers, who are mostly non-deployed, Observing in the absence of Nonreactivity was neither detrimental nor beneficial for mothers’ inhibitory control or effective parenting, but Observing in the presence of Nonreactivity was beneficial for mothers’ inhibitory control. This study extends the application of Monitor and Acceptance Theory to parent samples and parent-child interaction contexts, adding to the growing body of literature on parental dispositional mindfulness. The findings have implications for understanding the specific and interactive effects of distinct dispositional mindfulness dimensions on observed parenting behaviors and mechanisms of change through which mindfulness interventions may promote positive parenting behaviors in military parents and possibly other highly stressed parents alike.

Research on the relations between dispositional mindfulness and parenting has been limited by cross-sectional investigations, self-reports on parenting measures, and the focus on composite FFMQ scores instead of specific dimensions (Kil et al., 2021). A few studies have reported interaction effects between Observing and Nonreactivity; these were shown previously as a buffering effect (Barnes & Lynn, 2010; Desrosiers et al., 2014), synergistic effect (Desrosiers et al., 2014; Tomfohr et al., 2015), or cross-over effect (Desrosiers et al., 2014; Eisenlohr-Moul et al., 2012). This study provides longitudinal evidence supporting the specific and interactive roles of Observing and Nonreactivity in promoting positive parenting. An important contribution of the current study is the finding (Hypothesis 1) that among fathers with high Nonreactivity, higher Observing was associated with improvements in effective parenting, whereas among fathers with low Nonreactivity, higher Observing was associated with poorer observed parenting. For fathers with mean levels of Nonreactivity, there was no significant association between Observing and changes in effective parenting behaviors over time. This finding provides an important explanation for previous studies where the relation between FFMQ composite scores and observed parenting behaviors were not detected (Kil et al., 2021). Future research is warranted to examine specific FFMQ dimensions when assessing parental dispositional mindfulness and the interactive effects instead of only focusing on main effects.

Notably, these moderation effects were not evident in mothers. Fathers in this study – because of their deployment to war – were at higher risk for mental health problems and parenting challenges than mothers during family reintegration after their deployment. Dispositional mindfulness as an inner resource promoting effective parenting may be more beneficial for higher-risk parents, similar to the assumption that mindfulness is more beneficial for high-stress populations’ health (Creswell & Lindsay, 2014). Higher-risk parents are more vulnerable to parenting stress which leads to negative parenting (Deater-Deckard, 1998). In the current study, fathers who pay attention to their inner experiences without acceptance (i.e., high Observing and low Nonreactivity) might be vulnerable to parenting stress, and fathers who pay attention to their experiences with acceptance (i.e., high Observing and high Nonreactivity) have necessary skills in stress management that can benefit their parenting. It is worth noting that our data were drawn from a randomized controlled trial of a parenting intervention, and although multi-group comparison showed no statistical difference in the hypothesized paths between intervention and control group, prior studies found that families who were randomized into the intervention showed improvements in parenting behaviors one year later when using aggregated scores across mothers and fathers (Gewirtz et al., 2018). Thus, variances in mothers’ parenting behaviors at 2-year follow-up could have been explained by some of the intervention-induced changes at 1-year that were carried over and our models did not model these sources of variances. On the other hand, only a subgroup of fathers who were in the intervention demonstrated improvements in parenting behaviors one year later (Zhang et al., 2020), which indicates that most fathers’ parenting behaviors were unexplained by the intervention.

In both mothers and fathers, Nonreactivity moderated the effects of Observing on changes in inhibitory control one year later, although inhibitory control was not related to parenting (Hypothesis 2). Specifically, high levels of fathers’ Nonreactivity buffered the negative impacts of Observing on increased inhibitory control deficits 1 year later, whereas high levels of mothers’ Nonreactivity interacted with Observing to yield decreases in deficits of inhibitory control 1 year later. Altogether it suggests that in the presence of high Observing, Nonreactivity had a protective effect for fathers’ inhibitory control and a promotional effect for mothers’ inhibitory control. By extending a prior cross-sectional study using self-reported measures to assess cognitive functions (Desrosiers et al., 2014), our findings provide stronger evidence for the interactive effects between Observing and Nonreactivity dispositional mindfulness on cognitive functions.

Because no evidence was found for the relation between inhibitory control and parenting behaviors, there was no evidence for mediation. Parental cognitive functions such as attention, cold (e.g., working memory), and hot executive function (e.g., reward processing) have been related to positive and negative parenting (Bridgett et al., 2017; Mokrova et al., 2010; Monn et al., 2017; Shaffer & Obradović, 2017) and there is a growing research area suggesting that executive function may also be a mechanism of the intergenerational transmission of negative parenting. One study found that mothers’ executive function mediated the relation of mothers’ retrospective report of their own experience of negative parenting from their own parent to their own use of negative parenting (e.g., insensitivity, intrusion) with their infant, which was assessed via a 5-min interaction toy play task (Bridgett et al., 2017). It is possible that inhibitory control deficits might predict more specific, micro-level parenting dimensions (vs. the global measure used in the current study).

Our findings shed light on an underexplored area of research concerning specificity of parental dispositional mindfulness in relation to parenting. Thus far, most research has assessed parental dispositional mindfulness as a unidimensional concept (using the MAAS) or as a multidimensional concept (using the FFMQ). In the latter case, composite scores are often created, with an assumption that all five dimensions add up and contribute equally to the concept of dispositional mindfulness. A meta-analysis showed that the FFMQ composite scores demonstrated significant associations with self-reported positive parenting, but not with self-reported negative parenting or observed parenting measures (Kil et al., 2021). Perhaps not all of the five dimensions are essentially and uniquely important for effective parenting behaviors. Consistent with theories and empirical studies, we found Observing and Nonreactivity to be two essential dimensions that have interactive effects on observed effective parenting behaviors in fathers who were deployed to war and returned home. Although we did not study specific parenting dimensions, it is possible that different dimensions of parental dispositional mindfulness may be uniquely related to specific dimensions of parenting. We focused on a global measure of effective parenting that was found to predict children’s adjustment behaviors (Gewirtz et al., 2018).

The current study has clinical implications. Though our findings should be replicated, they suggest that mindfulness-enhanced parenting interventions might be tailored for parent gender and/or mental health risk. Specifically, among those at higher risk (in this case, deployed fathers with significant trauma exposure), strategies to help parents understand and apply acceptance in mindfulness training – in additional to mindful awareness or observing - might be particularly beneficial to strengthening parenting and family functioning. While effective parenting is well documented as a malleable process, the extent to which parental inhibitory control can be strengthened is debatable. It is possible that increasing acceptance via mindfulness interventions might be essential, in addition to teaching observation and monitoring of moment-to-moment experiences, for strengthening parental inhibitory control, which in turn might play a protective role in parents’ mental health (e.g. Monn et al., 2018).

Limitations and suggestions for future directions

The current study has limitations, and more research is warranted. The majority of the families had a non-deployed mother and a deployed father; thus, the differences in our findings across fathers and mothers cannot be clearly attributed to gender. We controlled for length of deployment in the analyses, and it was not significantly associated with inhibitory control or parenting behaviors. Relatedly, we analyzed fathers and mothers separately in the models, although we reported supplemental analyses that controlled for the other parent’s variables in the same model. The interpretation of our findings should focus on between-person associations. Future research should use growth modeling or intensive longitudinal modeling to elucidate within-person associations which will also inform the development of more effective mindfulness interventions for parents. Finally, it would be important to replicate the findings in other parent samples (e.g., low-risk families, single-parent families, or other types of highly stressed families).

In sum, our findings document the importance of both Observing and Nonreactivity facets of mindfulness in contributing to effective, positive parenting behaviors, and to parental inhibitory control. Findings also suggest that there might be greater risks for poor outcomes in the absence of Nonreactivity among fathers, but not mothers. Overall, our findings suggest that mindfulness interventions for parents should emphasize the Acceptance tenet of Mindfulness, consistent with Monitor and Acceptance Theory.

Supplementary Material

Supplemental Material

Figure 2.

Figure 2.

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Plot of fathers’ baseline Nonreactivity as a moderator conditioning the unstandardized effect of baseline Observing on effective parenting at 2-year follow-up.

Notes: The x-axis is fathers’ Nonreactivity score at baseline (mean-centered). The y-axis is estimated unstandardized coefficient of Observing’s effect on fathers’ effective parenting behaviors at 2-year follow-up controlling for baseline effective parenting behaviors and covariates. Grey curved lines are 95% Confidence Intervals. Regions with gray shades are of statistical significance.

Acknowledgments

A proportion of the results of this study was presented in a symposium at the conference of the Society for Prevention Research in 2019 in San Francisco, CA. The ADAPT study was funded by grant from National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01 DA030114; PI: Abigail Gewirtz). Na Zhang acknowledges support from the National Institute of Mental Health grant under K01MH122502. The analysis was not preregistered. Data, study materials, and analysis code are available from Corresponding Author upon request.

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