THE ROLE OF PARENTING IN CHILDHOOD WELL-BEING AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY: HOW TO ASSESS, SUPPORT, AND INTERVENE IN PARENTING FROM BEHAVIORAL, MINDFUL, AND REFLECTIVE PERSPECTIVES

Parenting behaviors and styles can impact the psychological well-being and psychopathology of children. The mechanisms of how parenting contributes to child psychological development is complex and dynamic. The caregiver's influence on the child includes shared genetics, parenting style, response to the child's temperament, and as a filter to broader forces such as culture and the social and economic class. The child's individual traits, such as the child's genetics, temperament, and response to their caregiver's parenting style, can impact the child's unique resilience, psychopathological risks, and the caregivers' response. Given the importance and complexity of parenting for children's healthy psychological development, this presentation will provide current knowledge on how to assess parenting styles and empirically supported parenting interventions, including behavioral parent training, mindful parenting, and reflective parenting, aimed at supporting parent and child well-being and decreasing risk for child psychopathology. Presenters will review current empirical evidence on how to assess parenting and intervene to optimize parenting. Leading parenting experts will review theory and techniques of assessment of parenting and 3 approaches to therapeutic intervention: behavioral, mindful, and reflective. The overlap between parenting therapies to highlight core healthy parenting principles will be discussed. Case examples will be used to exemplify techniques and aid in discussion. Participants will learn ways to conceptualize and assess parenting styles, as well as the theory underlying parenting interventions that include behavioral parenting, mindful parenting, and reflective parenting. They will also gain an understanding of how to translate the theories to specific therapeutic techniques to optimize parenting for the well-being of the children. Empirical evidence supports the connection between parenting behaviors and styles with childhood well-being and psychopathology. Child and adolescent mental health clinicians will benefit from current knowledge on how to assess parenting styles and parenting interventions to improve clinicians' abilities to support the parent-child dyad and decrease the risk for child psychopathology.