Research indicates that modern-day parents are experiencing enormous struggles and inability to manage the burdens of the dual commitment of work and parenting.  I am conducting research that is aimed at exploring how the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) through psychological flexibility skills could empower working parents of adolescents to mitigate work-parenting pressure.  This research is in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at the University of Namibia.

Adolescence is a critical child development phase and is at times accompanied by an increase in conflict, high risk behaviours and a shift in parent-child relationships. Parents may unexpectedly experience worrying thoughts and emotional struggles about their children and their parenting, which might get in the way of optimal childcare and support. It is important to emphasise that this study through the ACT seeks to offer ways to assist working parents to cope with difficult thoughts and emotions and in turn achieve positive parenting outcomes.

The main objective of this study is to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of the ACT based parent training intervention, that is aimed at developing psychological flexibility skills to mitigate work-parenting pressure.  Working parents who practice evidence-based parenting, are said to have a greater chance of raising adolescents who transition into well-adjusted members of society.