Psychological needs in parents and clinically referred adolescents: An integrative model via parenting and parental mindfulness.

Abstract

Framed on Self-Determination Theory, this study sought to examine the interplay between parents' and adolescents' need satisfaction and need frustration, as well as to investigate the potential mediating role of autonomy-supportive and psychologically controlling parenting. Whether parents' dispositional mindfulness moderated the relation between parental need frustration and parenting was also investigated. Participants were 213 clinically referred adolescents between 12 and 17 years (M age = 14.36; 55.9% girls) and 225 parents (85.3% mothers). Findings from structural equation models revealed a bright and a dark pathway linking parents' and adolescents' need-based experiences through parenting. Specifically, parental need satisfaction was positively related to autonomy-supportive parenting, which, in turn, contributed to greater adolescents' need satisfaction. In contrast, parents' need frustration yielded a positive association with psychologically controlling parenting, which, in turn, positively related to adolescents' need frustration. Latent moderation analyses also indicated that parents' mindfulness played a role as a moderator of the relationship between parental need frustration and psychological control; the association was attenuated when parents reported higher levels of mindfulness. Implications for the promotion of positive parenting among families of adolescents with mental health problems are outlined.

Transmission of Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction Between Parents and Adolescents: The Critical Role of Parental Perceptions

“…Based on previous SDT study findings (Costa et al, 2019;Lo Cricchio et al, 2021;Nishimura et al, 2021) and family systems theory, we expected to find associations between some of the BPNS of parents and adolescents. However, while our correlational analysis basically replicated the significant positive correlations between parents' and adolescents' BPNS (see our online interactive correlation matrices) found in the literature (e.g., Lo Cricchio et al, 2021;Nishimura et al, 2021;Rodrı´guez-Meirinhos et al, 2021), the results from our two longitudinal analyses did not detect such influence over time. More specifically, parents' need satisfaction did not reliably predict adolescents' need satisfaction (no parental need effect) and adolescents' need satisfaction did not predict parents' need satisfaction (no child's needs effect) while controlling for initial BPNS.…”

“…Finally, our studies indicate that parental perceptions should be considered in future interventions targeting adolescents' emotional, social, and academic adaptation. Assessing parents' perceptions of adolescents could provide important information to guide interventions and explain the maintenance of certain perceptions of autonomy, competence, and relatedness that underpin various negative emotional and behavioral outcomes in adolescents (Rodrı´guez-Meirinhos et al, 2021). Finally, as Ohtani et al (2022) suggested, parents could also be made aware of their influential power and use it to positively support their children.…”

“…Examining closely the links between parents' and adolescents' BPNS could guide interventions aiming to improve adolescents' mental health, parent-child relationships, and family dynamics. As suggested by Rodrı´guez-Meirinhos et al (2021), parents' psychological needs are connected to those of their children and could be a lever of intervention to help clinically referred adolescents. This line of intervention could lead to better psychological well-being in parents as well as more positive parenting due to the mental space and energy that parents will derive from having their needs satisfied (van Der Kaap-Deeder et al, 2019).…”

“…One is an experimental study among Belgian mother–adolescent dyads showing that the self-reported BPNS of adolescents and mothers were positively and moderately correlated during a recorded conversation (Wuyts et al, 2018). The others are cross-sectional studies reporting moderate positive associations between parents’ and adolescents’ overall BPNS in Italian (Costa et al, 2019; Lo Cricchio et al, 2021), Spanish (Rodríguez-Meirinhos et al, 2021), and Japanese (Nishimura et al, 2021) dyads. Taking a systemic lens, even a sub-systemic one, such as the parent–child relationship, would be a useful step forward after the investigation of individual BPNS in SDT literature.…”

The effects of mindfulness upbringing perception on social entrepreneurship orientation: A moderated mediation model of prosocial motivation and perceived pressure from external stakeholders

“…In response, the prosocial motivation of social entrepreneurs can be divided into three dimensions ( Duncan and Shaddix, 2015 ). Global prosocial motivation refers to the tendency of social enterprise entrepreneurs to care about the interests of others and try to protect and promote the well-being of others through social entrepreneurship activities ( Rodríguez-Meirinhos et al, 2021 ). The situational prosocial motivation of social entrepreneurs refers to the desire of social enterprise entrepreneurs to benefit other people of a specific category through a specific field, operation process, or business model ( Davis et al, 2014 ).…”