Self-Compassion and Psychological Health of Parents: A Meta-Analysis Focused on Some Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

Only 15 studies in the whole review, and as few as four for any single question (four for anxiety, five for well-being). The authors call this the review's biggest limitation, and say there were too few studies to test whether anything else, such as the child's age or diagnosis, changed the relationship. The evidence is almost entirely about parents of children with autism (10 of the 15 studies) or intellectual disability. Only one study included parents of children with ADHD, and there were none at all on parents of children with learning, communication or motor disorders, so the numbers may not carry over to those families. Every study pooled here was a one-off questionnaire study rather than a trial, and intervention studies were deliberately excluded. Nothing here shows that raising a parent's self-compassion would change their anxiety, depression, stress or well-being. Self-compassion was scored as a single total for each parent, so it is impossible to tell whether the link comes from the kind, supportive side of self-compassion or simply from the absence of the harsh, self-critical side. Self-compassion was measured by questionnaire in every study, so how parents actually experience and practise it in daily life is not captured.

The text provided names one funder, Yuksek Ihtisas University. No other funding source and no competing interests are declared in the text provided.

Do not take this as evidence that teaching parents to be kinder to themselves would improve their mental health. Every study pooled here measured self-compassion and distress at the same moment rather than following parents over time, and the review excluded intervention studies, so it cannot show which came first. The authors themselves note that parents who are depressed or anxious say self-compassion is the very thing they find hard to practise.