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Are parents identifying positive aspects to parenting their child with an intellectual disability or are they just coping? A qualitative exploration

Beighton, C; Wills, J (2017) Are parents identifying positive aspects to parenting their child with an intellectual disability or are they just coping? A qualitative exploration. Journal of Intellectual Disabilities, 21 (4). pp. 325-345. ISSN 1744-6295 https://doi.org/10.1177/1744629516656073
SGUL Authors: Beighton, Carole Ann

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Abstract

Although acknowledging the stress of raising their child with intellectual disabilities, parents also report that their child has brought about many positive changes in themselves and family. This study reports what parents perceive to be a positive aspect of parenting their child, as currently what constitutes a ‘positive’ is unclear. Seven key themes were identified; an increased sense of personal strength and confidence, changed priorities, greater appreciation of life, pleasure in the child’s accomplishments, increased faith/spirituality, more meaningful relationships and the positive effect that the child has on the wider community. Interpretive examination of the themes reveals that the positive aspects identified consist mostly of meaning-focused coping strategies. These enable parents to adapt successfully to the stressful experiences of raising their child and therefore could be amenable to meaning-focused therapeutic interventions for parents with newly diagnosed children or for those unable to identify any positive aspects of parenting their child.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
SGUL Research Institute / Research Centre: Academic Structure > Population Health Research Institute (INPH)
Journal or Publication Title: Journal of Intellectual Disabilities
ISSN: 1744-6295
Dates:
DateEvent
1 December 2017Published
26 June 2016Published Online
30 May 2016Accepted
Publisher License: Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0
URI: https://openaccess.sgul.ac.uk/id/eprint/108030
Publisher's version: https://doi.org/10.1177/1744629516656073

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