Esthi Rahayu, Dwi Yuwono Puji Sugiharto, Edy Purwanto, Awalya
Parenting a child with developmental disabilities involves multifaceted emotional, psychological, and practical challenges that frequently result in elevated stress and difficulties in emotion regulation, particularly among mothers who most often take on the role of primary caregivers. Chronic stress in this context has been linked to increased risk of maternal mental health problems, decreased parenting efficacy, and strained parent-child relationships. Therefore, this backdrop, this study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of two structured psychological interventions Mindful Parenting (MP) and Problem-Solving Therapy (PST), in reducing parenting stress and enhancing emotion regulation among mothers of children with developmental disabilities. A mixed-subjects experimental design was employed with nine participating mothers, who were randomly assigned to either the MP or PST intervention group. Both interventions were delivered over a series of structured sessions. The participants were assessed at three time points: preintervention, postintervention, and one-month follow-up. Emotion regulation was measured through two established strategies: cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. Moreover, parenting stress was assessed across three key domains: parental distress, difficult child, and dysfunctional parent-child interaction. The data were analyzed via mixed-design multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and repeated measures ANOVA. The findings indicated that the MP intervention significantly reduced overall parenting stress and improved the parent-child relationship (p < 0.05). Moreover, the PST intervention significantly improved in cognitive reappraisal (p < 0.05) and substantially reduced in parental distress (p < 0.01). No significant interaction effects were found between the two interventions, suggesting distinct yet complementary benefits. These findings underscore the importance of accessible, targeted psychological interventions for caregivers of children with developmental disabilities. Both MP and PST provide promising frameworks for mitigating caregiver burden and enhancing emotional well-being, with implications for clinical psychology, family health policy, and community-based intervention programs. Copyright (c) 2025 The Authors. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Department of Guidance and Counseling, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Semarang State University, Semarang, Indonesia
