Mindsets of Parenting Ability: Coping With Challenges and Engaging in Parenting

Abstract

Parenting can bring both joy and stress. Identifying factors that foster greater engagement and enjoyment while also helping parents cope with inevitable stressors is critical for healthy child development and parental wellbeing. In the current work, we build on growth mindset theory to explore individual differences in beliefs about the changeable nature of parenting ability. Specifically, across three correlational studies (N = 1170), we investigated if growth mindsets about parenting related to coping in the wake of parenting setbacks and to parental engagement. Growth mindsets predicted more positive expectations and less avoidant coping after parenting challenges, and these processes, and growth mindsets, correlated with parental engagement. Across the three studies, average links between growth mindsets and the two primary outcomes of interest—avoidant coping and engagement—were r = −0.31 and r = 0.20, respectively.