The Mediating Role of Psychological Flexibility and Resiliency in the Relationship between Mindfulness and Parenting Stress

After controlling for five covariates, namely children's age and gender, parents' age and gender, and parents' marital status, we found that mindfulness had an insignificant direct effect on parenting stress (β = -0.046, 95% CI: -0.234, 0.099). However, mindfulness did exert indirect effects on parenting stress through both psychological flexibility (β = -0.104, 95% CI: -0.180, -0.034) and resiliency (β = -0.197, 95% CI: -0.287, -0.111). Comparing the standardized path coefficients (-0.197 Vs -0.104), we observed that resiliency had a stronger mediation effect than psychological flexibility on the association between mindfulness and parenting stress. Importantly, the total effect of mindfulness on parenting stress was significant (β = -0.347, 95% CI: -0.712, -0.347). When considering the five covariates, mindfulness, resiliency, and psychological flexibility, we explained approximately 17.10% of the variance in parenting stress. The results from the multi-intermediation analysis support the partial mediation of both psychological flexibility and resiliency between mindfulness and parenting stress, with resiliency exhibiting a stronger mediation effect than psychological flexibility.