The aim of this study was to explore the concept of mindful parenting with regard to its structure, its relation to the concept of mindfulness and parenting experience. The study also aimed at exploring whether parents of children at different age express differences in mindful parenting. One of the aims of this study was to validate the Croatian version of the Mindfulness in Parenting Questionnaire (McCaffrey, 2015) that consists of two factors - Parental Self-efficacy and Being in the moment with a child. Therefore, we hypothesised that data collected in this research would also confirm the two-factor structure, as obtained in the original validation. Furthermore, it was hypothesised that mothers would show a higher level of mindful parenting than fathers and that mindfulness and positive experience with their own parents in childhood would be significant predictors of mindful parenting. A total of 515 parents (320 mothers and 195 fathers) participated in the study and filled out General data questionnaire, Short scale of Mindful attention awareness scale (MAAS), Mindfulness in parenting questionnaire (MIPQ) and Parenting sense of competence scale. The results showed that the five-factor model fits better to data collected in this research with factors being focusing attention to the child with acceptance, empathic understanding of the child, parental self-efficacy, parental awareness, and non-reactivity. Furthermore, it has been shown that mothers are more empathetic and more focused on the child than fathers. Finally, significant correlations between mindful parenting and dimensions of parental sense of competence were obtained. Contrary to the expectations, mindfulness as an intra-personal characteristic did not prove to be a significant predictor of mindful parenting. One of the most important predictors of all the dimensions of mindful parenting was positive experience with their own parents during childhood.
