Nurturing Family Environments for Children: Compassion-Focused Parenting as a Form of Parenting Intervention

Abstract

The style of parenting a child receives has profound long-term impacts on that child’s life. Yet, the rates of child maltreatment globally are high (in both developing and developed countries), indicating that many children around the world are being raised in toxic environments. Evidence-based parenting programs (EBPPs) have been demonstrated to have positive impacts on improving parenting style, whilst reducing childhood social, emotional and behavioural problems. EBPPs originated out of a need to address externalizing behaviour problems and to address conduct problems, and compliance became a key target of these parenting models. Thus, many EBPPs were developed in an era where operant and social learning theory-based approaches to parenting were most prominent and these parenting models still prevail today. This paper has one major aim—to demonstrate how the next generation of EBPPs need to be grounded in evolved caring motivational systems and affiliative emotion processing, which requires an understanding of the evolved processes involved in parent-offspring caring. This new approach to parenting is called, ‘compassion-focused parenting’, and this new approach to parenting will be described.

Self-compassion and Perceived Criticism in Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

“…Individuals consequently perceive kindness and compassion from others or the self as a potential threat that prevents people from engaging in selfcompassion (Naismith et al 2019). This offers a further potential explanation for the reduced self-compassion in people with ADHD, as experiences of hostility towards symptoms of ADHD, such as being loud, excitable or emotionally reactive, may subsequently be associated with caregivers, which in turn may result in care being associated with punishment and subsequently lead to fear of care or compassion (Kirby 2020).…”

Parenting and Healthy Teenage Lifestyles

“…That was initially researched in Spain and Brazil [27,28], and lately it has been confirmed in other countries such as Germany and the United States [29][30][31], highlighting the importance of parental involvement in variables such as school adjustment or being a victim of cyberbullying [32][33][34]. Other studies speak of how to banish toxic family scenarios with compassion-centered parenting intervention programs [21], which add the cognitive-reflective-dimension of personality, in addition to the conative and affective ones contemplated in previous models. This is also the approach of the personalist model [35], which introduces a gradualness in the exercise of the three dimensions-conative, affective, and cognitive-as a way to match the different sociocultural scenarios and vital stages.…”

“…Along with control and emotional openness-responsiveness-a communication style is considered that appeals to intelligence-cognitive dimension-to promote adolescent autonomy and make the internalization of healthy lifestyles in the long term possible, in line with the biopsychosocial, evolutionary, and contextual approach [36], as shown in Figure 4. Other studies speak of how to banish toxic family scenarios with compassion-centered parenting intervention programs [21], which add the cognitive-reflective-dimension of personality, in addition to the conative and affective ones contemplated in previous models. This is also the approach of the personalist model [35], which introduces a gradualness in the exercise of the three dimensions-conative, affective, and cognitive-as a way to match the different sociocultural scenarios and vital stages.…”

“…There are numerous reviews [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ] on the origins and evolution of parental educational styles. Figure 3 a shows the simplest approach [ 22 ] that only addresses the type of control—conative dimension—while other models add the emotional dimension: responsiveness [ 23 ] Figure 3 b Currently, the concept of parenting has become more complex and can be understood as a set of beliefs, feelings, and patterns of parental behavior that affect the psychosocial functioning of children [ 24 ].…”

“…Other studies speak of how to banish toxic family scenarios with compassion-centered parenting intervention programs [ 21 ], which add the cognitive—reflective—dimension of personality, in addition to the conative and affective ones contemplated in previous models. This is also the approach of the personalist model [ 35 ], which introduces a gradualness in the exercise of the three dimensions—conative, affective, and cognitive—as a way to match the different sociocultural scenarios and vital stages.…”