Children in single-parent families are those under 18 years old who cannot live independently and are raised by their father or mother alone due to the divorce of their parents or the death of one of them [1,2]. With the socio-economic development and the increasing diversification of social structure, the divorce rate in China has increased from 0.96‰ in 2000 to 3.1‰ in 2020 [3]. As the divorce rate increases, the number of children in single-parent families continues to increase, and now exceeds 20 million [4]. The lack of family structure and the absence of parenting by one parent can influence children's growth and their mental health [5,6]. For instance, studies have shown that compared to two-parent families, children in single-parent families may experience more traumas such as physical neglect, emotional neglect, and physical abuse due to long-term lack of care from one or even both of their estranged parents [7] and children in single-parent families have lower resilience [8] and exhibit more mental health problems such as high self-blame, low self-esteem [9]and high relative deprivation [8]. Children among single-parent families in Tibetan areas may be more prone to mental health problems due to limited education condition and lower economic and social status [10,11].Studies have shown that childhood is a critical period for the development of children and thus is an important window of opportunity to foster mental health [[12], [13], [14]]. Therefore, enhancing the resilience and improving the mental health of children especially among single-parent families in Tibetan areas is of great importance to promote a healthy development [13]. Among several possible interventions to promote mental health in children (e.g., physical training, art therapy) [3,15,16], mindfulness-based interventions may play a vital role [3,17,18], especially in Tibetan children, as Tibet is one of the birthplace of Buddhism. An overwhelming majority of the population follows Tibetan Buddhism (also known as Lamaism) [19].

Mindfulness is the awareness that arises by practicing a particular way of paying attention (on purpose, non-judgmentally) to thoughts flowering in the mind, the body, and the environment at any given moment [[20], [21], [22]]. Mindfulness group intervention is a group psychological intervention method based on mindfulness, which can improve mental resilience [23]and reduce symptoms of some mental health conditions [20,24]. For trauma populations, high levels of mindfulness attenuated the association between trauma exposure and anxiety symptom severity [25]. Mindfulness themed group counseling was also found to significantly improve the mental health of orphaned school students [26]. When a combined intervention of mindfulness with compassion was examined, it was effective in reducing traumatic stress symptoms and improving self-compassion in people with interpersonal violence trauma [27]. Similarly, psychological interventions based on mindfulness combined with compassion were found to reduce depression levels and improve psychological resilience in depressed patients with traumatic childhood experiences [28].

Although the mindfulness intervention combined with compassion has a significant potential for the treatment of traumatized populations, additional research is needed to refine the approach, and determine whether it can be used as a complementary or stand-alone intervention option [29]. Moreover, there is little research on the use of mindfulness group interventions in children from single-parent families who may have experienced a trauma (e.g., due to the divorce of their parents). Taken together the previous research indicates that although mindfulness interventions can improve the psychological resilience and mental health of people who have experienced trauma, further research is required to investigate whether mindfulness group interventions can improve self-compassion, resilience, and mental health in children among single-parent families, and whether such a intervention approach can improve mental health as a stand-alone intervention option. Based on the positive findings of studies applying mindfulness intervention to improve mental health in trauma populations [29], this study hypothesized that mindfulness group interventions can enhance self-compassion and resilience and can improve the mental health of single-parent children in Tibetan areas. In addition, correlation between each two outcomes of interest at baseline was investigated, which could help researchers and health professionals gain a deep understanding about the above-presented variables in this unique group.