Objectives <p>This study examined how mindful parenting was associated with parental involvement among rural families with preschool-aged children in China and explored how mindful parenting may function in parents’ everyday educational practices within resource-constrained contexts, using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design grounded in Belsky’s parenting process model.</p> Method <p>In the quantitative phase, married parents of preschool-aged children from six rural kindergartens in central China (<i>n</i> = 1284) completed a questionnaire survey. Hierarchical regression analyses and network analysis were conducted to examine correlates and bridging patterns. In the qualitative phase, semi-structured interviews with purposively selected parents (<i>n</i> = 14) were analyzed using constructivist grounded theory to elaborate on how parents understood and enacted mindful parenting and involvement in daily life.</p> Results <p>Mindful parenting showed the strongest positive association with parental involvement after accounting for parental characteristics, family and social context, and child characteristics. Network analysis indicated that mindful discipline occupied a central bridging position linking parental, contextual, and child indicators with parental involvement. Qualitative findings further suggested that mindful parenting was described as helping parents regulate educational anxiety, reinterpret structural constraints, and translate limited resources into emotionally attuned, routine educational practices.</p> Conclusions <p>Taken together, these mixed-methods findings highlight mindful parenting as a salient psychological correlate and integrative resource for parental involvement in under-resourced rural Chinese settings, suggesting that it may help sustain supportive early educational engagement under constrained circumstances.</p> Preregistration <p>This study is not preregistered.</p>