What if Helping the Parent Is One of the Best Ways to Help the Child?

New research on parental stress and childhood ADHD raises important questions about how we understand challenging behaviour and why supporting parents may be an essential part of helping children.

By Dr. Bob Carey

For many parents raising a child with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), everyday family life can become an exhausting series of reminders, negotiations, frustrations, and attempts to keep things moving in the right direction. Getting ready for school may require repeated instructions, homework can become a nightly struggle, and seemingly simple requests, like putting away belongings, turning off a video game, or getting ready for bed, can turn into prolonged disagreements. Parents often find themselves repeating the same instructions, becoming increasingly frustrated when their child does not respond, and eventually reacting in ways they had hoped to avoid.

What makes these experiences particularly difficult is that parents are usually trying very hard to do the right thing. They understand the importance of being patient, providing encouragement, maintaining reasonable expectations, and responding consistently. Nevertheless, when the same difficulties occur day after day, even the most committed parents can become exhausted. Over time, they may begin to anticipate problems before they occur, become increasingly sensitive to behaviours that have previously led to conflict, and find themselves reacting more quickly or intensely than they otherwise would. Meanwhile, the child is experiencing these interactions from an entirely different perspective. A child who struggles with attention, impulse control, organization, emotional regulation, or managing transitions may find ordinary expectations genuinely difficult to meet. When these difficulties repeatedly result in criticism, correction, or conflict, the child may become increasingly frustrated, defensive, or reluctant to cooperate. Gradually, the relationship between parent and child can become organized around the very behaviours everyone is trying to change.

A recently published study in the journal Mindfulness offers an interesting perspective on this familiar situation. Rather than concentrating primarily on teaching children with ADHD to control their behaviour, the researchers examined what might happen if an intervention focused on helping parents manage their own stress and respond differently to the challenges of raising a child with ADHD.

The findings raise an important question that is closely connected to the principles underlying Positive Systems Approach (PSA), which has guided much of my professional work and forms the foundation of my latest book, What if It's Not Just the Behaviour? A Parent's Companion. Perhaps some of our efforts to help children would be more effective if we devoted greater attention to the emotional well-being of the parents and the patterns of interaction that develop within families.

In September 2026, researchers Nannaphat Phasuke and colleagues published a randomized controlled trial examining the effects of a brief online mindful-parenting program on parenting stress and the symptoms of children diagnosed with ADHD. The study involved 98 parents in Thailand whose children, between the ages of six and twelve, had a confirmed diagnosis of ADHD.  The parents were randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group participated in a four-week online mindful-parenting program, while the other continued with the usual medical care available to their children. The intervention involved weekly 90-minute group sessions conducted by videoconference, along with brief daily mindfulness exercises and reminders delivered through a mobile messaging application.  The program was designed to help parents become more aware of their emotional responses, listen more attentively to their children, recognize their own stress reactions, and respond to difficult situations with greater emotional regulation and compassion. Rather than concentrating exclusively on changing the child's behaviour, the intervention encouraged parents to become more mindful of how they were experiencing and responding to everyday parenting challenges.

The results were encouraging. Parents who participated in the program reported significantly lower levels of parenting stress than those in the comparison group, and these improvements remained evident at a two-month follow-up. The differences were substantial, suggesting that even a relatively brief intervention could have meaningful benefits for parents who were experiencing the considerable demands associated with raising a child with ADHD. Perhaps the most interesting finding was that parents who participated in the program also reported improvements in their children's inattention and hyperactivity immediately following the intervention. These improvements were not maintained as statistically significant differences between the groups at the two-month follow-up, and the researchers did not find significant differences in children's oppositional behaviours.

These findings require some caution because the children's symptoms were assessed through parent questionnaires rather than independent observations or teacher reports. It is therefore possible that some of the reported improvement reflected changes in how parents perceived and experienced their children's behaviour, rather than changes in the underlying symptoms themselves. The researchers also did not systematically track changes in the children's concurrent medical or educational treatments.  Nevertheless, the study provides evidence that helping parents manage their own stress can produce meaningful benefits for their emotional well-being and may also influence how they experience and respond to their children's difficulties. This is particularly important because the relationship between parental stress and children's challenging behaviour is rarely a simple one-way process.

When a child has ADHD, parents are often encouraged to become more organized, consistent, patient, and deliberate in their responses. These are reasonable recommendations, but they can be remarkably difficult to implement when parents themselves are experiencing chronic stress.  Consider a parent who has spent the entire day managing work responsibilities, household demands, and the needs of several family members. By the time the evening arrives, the parent may have relatively little emotional energy remaining. When a child with ADHD repeatedly leaves the dinner table, interrupts conversations, refuses to begin homework, or becomes distracted while getting ready for bed, the parent's frustration may increase much more quickly than it would under less stressful circumstances.

The parent may respond by repeating instructions more forcefully, criticizing the child's lack of cooperation, or introducing consequences intended to bring the situation under control. Unfortunately, a child who already struggles with emotional regulation and impulse control may react negatively to these increasingly intense responses, leading to further arguments and resistance.  As the interaction continues, both parent and child become increasingly distressed, and neither is particularly well positioned to respond thoughtfully. What began as a relatively ordinary difficulty with attention or organization has developed into an emotionally charged confrontation that may have little to do with the original request.  Over time, repeated experiences of this kind can establish patterns in which the parent's frustration and the child's behaviour continually influence one another. Parents may become more vigilant and controlling because they anticipate difficulties, while children may become increasingly resistant or emotionally reactive because they anticipate correction and conflict.  This is not simply a matter of poor parenting or deliberate misbehaviour. It reflects a reciprocal process in which the characteristics and responses of both individuals contribute to an established pattern of interaction.

The recent research is particularly interesting because it suggests that reducing parental stress may be one way of beginning to alter these patterns. When parents feel less overwhelmed, they may be better able to recognize what is happening, respond more calmly, and avoid escalating situations that might otherwise develop into conflict.  This does not mean that reducing parental stress will eliminate ADHD, nor does it suggest that parents are responsible for causing their children's symptoms. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition involving differences in attention, impulse control, and executive functioning. However, the way these difficulties are experienced and expressed in everyday life can be influenced by the environments and relationships in which children function.

One of the most useful aspects of mindful parenting is that it encourages parents to become more aware of the difference between reacting automatically to a child's behaviour and responding after considering what may be contributing to it.  Imagine a child who has been asked several times to begin homework but continues playing with toys or wandering around the house. The parent may interpret the behaviour as deliberate avoidance or refusal to cooperate, particularly if the same situation has occurred repeatedly. As frustration increases, the parent may begin raising their voice or threatening consequences.  However, the child's behaviour may reflect several different difficulties. The child may be struggling to shift attention from a preferred activity, may not know how to organize the homework task, may feel overwhelmed by the amount of work involved, or may have developed anxiety because homework has become associated with repeated conflict.  If the parent is already stressed, there may be little opportunity to consider these possibilities before responding. The immediate objective becomes getting the child to comply, and the interaction may quickly become another confrontation.

A parent who has developed greater awareness of their own emotional reactions may be better able to recognize the early signs of frustration and approach the situation differently. Rather than immediately repeating the demand more forcefully, the parent might sit beside the child, help organize the materials, clarify the first step, or provide a brief transition period before beginning.  The expectation that homework must be completed has not necessarily changed, but the way the parent helps the child meet that expectation has changed considerably.  This distinction is important because effective parenting does not simply involve establishing appropriate expectations. It also involves recognizing whether the child has the skills and support necessary to meet them.  Mindful parenting may help parents create enough emotional space to consider these factors before reacting, particularly when they are dealing with situations that have become longstanding sources of frustration.

Throughout my work, I have frequently encountered situations in which challenging behaviour was being addressed primarily through strategies directed at the individual. Caregivers were encouraged to introduce more effective consequences, teachers were advised to strengthen reinforcement systems, and families were given techniques for reducing undesirable behaviour.  Although these approaches can be helpful, they sometimes produce limited results because insufficient attention has been devoted to understanding the interaction between the individual and the environment in which the behaviour occurs.

Positive Systems Approach was developed around the recognition that behaviour emerges from the interaction between Individual Factors and System Factors. The approach identifies seven Individual Factors and seven System Factors that provide a framework for examining the various influences contributing to a person's behaviour.  In the case of a child with ADHD, the Individual Factors might have been identified to include difficulties with attention, impulse control, organization, emotional regulation, working memory, and other developmental characteristics that influence the child's ability to manage everyday expectations. These characteristics are important because they help explain why certain tasks and situations may be more challenging for that child than for other children of a similar age.

The System Factors direct attention toward the circumstances surrounding the child, including family routines, environmental demands, relationships, expectations, available supports, and the ways other people respond to the child's behaviour. What makes this approach particularly valuable is the recognition that these factors interact continuously. A child who struggles with attention and organization may function much more successfully when expectations are clear, tasks are broken into manageable steps, and adults provide appropriate assistance. The same child may experience considerably greater difficulty when expectations are unclear, demands are excessive, or interactions with adults have become emotionally charged.  Similarly, parental stress is not simply an issue affecting the parent independently of the child. It can influence the emotional climate of the household, the consistency of expectations, the nature of parent-child interactions, and the availability of support when the child encounters difficulties.  From a PSA perspective, helping parents manage their stress may therefore represent an important environmental intervention, particularly when stress has become part of an established pattern of conflict.

The recent study was not designed to evaluate Positive Systems Approach, but its findings are consistent with the broader principle that effective intervention should consider the individual and the system rather than concentrating exclusively on one or the other.

One of the more unfortunate developments that can occur in families raising a child with ADHD is that family life gradually becomes dominated by the management of the child's difficulties. Parents may find themselves spending much of their time reminding, correcting, supervising, organizing, and anticipating problems. Activities that other families appear to manage relatively easily can require considerable planning and effort, and even enjoyable experiences may be interrupted by disagreements or emotional outbursts.

Over time, parents may begin to feel that they are constantly correcting their child, while the child may feel that almost everything they do attracts criticism. The relationship can become increasingly focused on what is going wrong rather than on the many positive qualities and abilities the child possesses.  This pattern can be particularly discouraging because children with ADHD often have considerable strengths, including creativity, enthusiasm, curiosity, humour, and the ability to become deeply engaged in activities that capture their interest. Unfortunately, these strengths can become overshadowed when so much of family life is devoted to managing difficulties with attention, organization, impulse control, or emotional regulation.

As parents become more exhausted, they may have fewer opportunities to enjoy relaxed interactions with their child. Activities that once provided pleasure may gradually be avoided because they seem likely to produce conflict, and family relationships can become increasingly strained.  In these circumstances, helping parents reduce their stress may have benefits that extend beyond their individual emotional well-being. It may create opportunities for more positive interactions, greater patience, improved communication, and a renewed appreciation of the child's strengths.  A parent who feels less overwhelmed may be better able to recognize when a child is making an effort, even if the outcome is imperfect. They may become more willing to adjust expectations, provide assistance, or respond with encouragement rather than correction.  These changes do not eliminate the child's ADHD, but they may help create a family environment in which the child's difficulties are less likely to dominate every interaction.

The child's difficulties may remain, but a different adult response can change what happens next.

One concern that sometimes arises when discussing mindful parenting is the assumption that parents are being encouraged to become more tolerant of inappropriate behaviour or to avoid establishing consequences.  In fact, mindful parenting is not inconsistent with clear expectations, appropriate boundaries, or effective behavioural strategies. Its purpose is to help parents become more aware of their emotional responses so that the decisions they make are thoughtful, proportionate, and appropriate to the circumstances.  A parent can remain calm while insisting that a child complete an important responsibility. They can acknowledge a child's frustration without abandoning a reasonable expectation, and they can establish consequences without allowing anger or exhaustion to determine how those consequences are applied.  For children with ADHD, this combination of emotional responsiveness and appropriate structure can be especially important. These children often benefit from predictable routines, clear instructions, manageable expectations, positive reinforcement, and assistance with developing organizational and emotional regulation skills.  However, these strategies may be less effective when they are delivered within an atmosphere of persistent frustration or conflict. The parent's emotional response can become part of the situation the child is attempting to manage, sometimes making an already difficult task even more challenging.

Mindful parenting therefore offers a way of improving the conditions in which behavioural and developmental interventions are implemented, rather than replacing those interventions altogether.   This distinction is supported by the findings of the recent study. Although parents reported improvements in their children's inattention and hyperactivity immediately following the program, the researchers did not identify significant improvements in oppositional symptoms. They suggested that interventions addressing more established patterns of oppositional behaviour may require the addition of specific behavioural management strategies.

From a Positive Systems Approach perspective, this is an important observation because it reinforces the need to consider multiple contributing factors and to avoid assuming that any single intervention will address every difficulty.

Whenever research identifies a relationship between parenting practices and children's behaviour, there is a risk that parents will interpret the findings as evidence that they are somehow responsible for their child's difficulties.  This is particularly concerning for parents raising children with ADHD, many of whom have already experienced years of frustration, criticism, and suggestions that they simply need to be more consistent or establish firmer boundaries.  It is essential to recognize that ADHD is not caused by parental stress, and the difficulties associated with ADHD cannot be explained simply by the way parents respond to their children.  At the same time, parents are not immune to the emotional consequences of managing persistent behavioural and developmental challenges. Raising a child who requires extensive supervision, repeated reminders, additional educational support, or considerable assistance with emotional regulation can be demanding, particularly when parents are also managing employment, household responsibilities, financial pressures, and the needs of other family members.  These pressures can gradually reduce the emotional resources available to parents, making it increasingly difficult to respond in the ways they know would be most helpful.

A systems perspective recognizes that parents themselves function within environments that influence their behaviour and well-being. Their capacity to remain patient and responsive may be affected by sleep, stress, work schedules, relationships, available support, and many other circumstances that are not entirely within their control.  Consequently, supporting parents should not be viewed simply as a strategy for improving children's behaviour. Parents deserve support because their own emotional health and quality of life matter.

The findings from the recent study are encouraging in this respect because they suggest that even a relatively brief intervention may help parents experience less stress while managing the ongoing demands of raising a child with ADHD.  It is also worth recognizing that mindful parenting does not necessarily require extensive formal meditation or a dramatic change in lifestyle. Although the study involved a structured intervention delivered by an experienced facilitator, some of its underlying principles can be incorporated into ordinary family interactions.  Parents may benefit from recognizing when they are becoming overwhelmed, taking a brief moment before responding, listening more carefully to what their child is attempting to communicate, or considering whether an expectation is realistic before insisting upon compliance.  These are relatively modest changes, but they may help interrupt patterns of interaction that have gradually become established over time.

Consider again the familiar situation in which a child with ADHD repeatedly struggles to get ready for school. The parent may have developed an elaborate system of reminders, warnings, and consequences, yet the same difficulties continue to occur each morning.  A conventional response might involve increasing the consequences for failing to follow instructions or introducing additional rewards for completing the morning routine.  A broader approach would begin by examining why the routine is so difficult. The child may struggle with remembering multiple instructions, organizing belongings, shifting between activities, estimating time, or maintaining attention long enough to complete a sequence of tasks.  The parent, meanwhile, may be experiencing considerable stress because the family's schedule leaves little room for delays. As the departure time approaches, the parent's frustration increases, instructions become more urgent, and the child may become increasingly distracted or emotionally reactive.

A Positive Systems Approach would consider changes that address both sides of this interaction. The child might benefit from a visual checklist, preparing belongings the night before, completing one task at a time, or receiving more direct assistance with organization. The parent might benefit from allowing additional time, reducing unnecessary morning demands, and developing strategies for recognizing and managing their own frustration.  The objective would not simply be to make the child comply more quickly, but to create a routine in which the child's individual difficulties are better accommodated and the parent is less likely to become overwhelmed.  Similar considerations apply to homework, bedtime, screen-time transitions, and other recurring sources of family conflict. In each situation, it is worth examining whether the child's difficulties are being intensified by environmental demands or patterns of interaction that could be modified.

This approach also encourages parents to recognize and reinforce successful experiences rather than devoting most of their attention to problems. When interactions become less dominated by correction and conflict, there may be greater opportunities for encouragement, enjoyment, and the development of a more positive parent-child relationship.

One of the central messages in my latest book, What if It's Not Just the Behaviour? A Parent's Companion, is that parents are often encouraged to focus on changing their children's behaviour without first developing a sufficiently comprehensive understanding of why that behaviour is occurring.  The book examines 45 common parenting situations, including homework battles, emotional meltdowns after school, bedtime struggles, sibling conflict, difficulties with screen time, and circumstances in which family life has gradually become dominated by tension and disagreement.  Rather than presenting a single behavioural technique as the solution to every problem, the book encourages parents to consider the interaction between the child's individual characteristics and the system surrounding them.

Sometimes the most important intervention involves helping the child develop a new skill. At other times, it may involve modifying expectations, changing routines, improving communication, or helping adults respond differently to challenging situations. Frequently, meaningful progress requires attention to several of these influences at the same time.  The recent study on mindful parenting provides a useful illustration of why this broader perspective matters. By focusing on parental stress rather than directly attempting to modify the child's ADHD symptoms, the researchers demonstrated that parents' emotional well-being could be improved and that some short-term changes in parent-reported child behaviour were also observed.

The findings do not establish that reducing parental stress directly changes the underlying neurodevelopmental characteristics associated with ADHD. They do, however, encourage us to consider how the emotional experiences of parents and children influence one another and how interventions directed toward one part of the family system may affect other aspects of family life.  For parents who have become exhausted by repeated attempts to manage their child's behaviour, this perspective may offer a more constructive way of understanding their difficulties.  Instead of continually searching for stronger consequences or more effective ways of securing compliance, it may be helpful to consider whether the established patterns of interaction themselves need to change.

There is something particularly important about the fact that the strongest and most sustained finding in this study involved the parents rather than the children. The reduction in parenting stress remained significant at the two-month follow-up, while the differences in parent-reported ADHD symptoms did not. This reminds us that improving the well-being of parents is a worthwhile outcome in its own right, even when changes in children's symptoms are less certain or take longer to emerge.  It also highlights the importance of avoiding overly simplistic interpretations of research findings. We cannot conclude that teaching parents’ mindfulness will necessarily reduce ADHD symptoms, nor should mindful parenting be viewed as a substitute for appropriate assessment, educational accommodations, evidence-based behavioural interventions, or medication when indicated.  What the research does suggest is that helping parents manage the emotional demands of parenting may be an important component of comprehensive support for families raising children with ADHD.

For me, this finding reinforces an idea that has been central to Positive Systems Approach for many years. When we encounter challenging behaviour, we need to resist the temptation to locate the entire problem within the individual and instead examine the interaction between the person's characteristics and the circumstances in which they function.  In the case of children with ADHD, this means recognizing both the genuine neurodevelopmental difficulties they experience and the ways family routines, parental stress, expectations, communication, and relationships may influence how those difficulties are expressed.  It also means acknowledging that parents are part of the system, not simply the people responsible for managing it. Their emotional well-being, available resources, and capacity to respond effectively deserve the same thoughtful consideration that we give to the child's needs.  When parents are less overwhelmed, they may be better able to recognize their child's strengths, respond to difficulties with greater understanding, and create opportunities for more positive interactions. Children, in turn, may experience a family environment in which their challenges are understood and supported rather than becoming the focus of repeated conflict. Ultimately, helping a child with ADHD is not simply a matter of reducing symptoms or improving compliance. It involves creating the conditions in which the child can develop skills, experience success, build positive relationships, and participate more comfortably in family and community life.  Sometimes that process begins with interventions directed toward the child, but at other times it may begin by providing parents with the support they need to manage the demands they are experiencing.

That is one of the important messages I hope parents will take away from What if It's Not Just the Behaviour? A Parent's Companion. By broadening our understanding of behaviour and considering the interaction between the individual and the system, we may discover opportunities for positive change that are easily overlooked when our attention remains focused exclusively on the child.  The recent research offers another reminder that helping children and helping parents should not be viewed as competing priorities. They are closely connected aspects of supporting the well-being of the entire family, and meaningful progress may be more likely when both receive the attention they deserve.

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Research Reference

Phasuke, N., Viravan, N., Wangthamkua, N., Malad, P., & Atsariyasing, W. (2026). Effects of a brief online mindful parenting program on parenting stress and parent-reported child symptoms in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: A randomized controlled trial. Mindfulness. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-026-02987-4