Coping When A Parent Has A Disability

Adolescence is naturally fraught with confusion: social skills, school, sports, love, acne, and a myriad of other issues are challenges every day. Having even one extra phenomenon, like how to deal with complications resulting from a parent's disability, can feel overwhelming. This book presents multiple aspects of disability in a mainstream culture. It will give readers a guide for developing resilience and finding a voice. Special features include a segment on Myths and Facts, as well as an Ask the Specialist section. Readers will gain a better understanding of self, other people, and the subject of disability itself.

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

Adolescence is naturally fraught with confusion: social skills, school, sports, love, acne, and a myriad of other issues are challenges every day. Having even one extra phenomenon, like how to deal with complications resulting from a parent's disability, can feel overwhelming. This book presents multiple aspects of disability in a mainstream culture. It will give readers a guide for developing resilience and finding a voice. Special features include a segment on Myths and Facts, as well as an Ask the Specialist section. Readers will gain a better understanding of self, other people, and the subject of disability itself.

Dr. Robert A. Naseef, a psychologist and father of a son with autism, details the daily blessings and challenges of raising a child with disabilities, offering sensitive, real-world advice along the way.

Raising a child with a disability can often be more isolating and frustrating than any parent ever imagines. Finally, here is a book that honestly describes the inner needs and range of issues parents with disabled children face. Changed by a Child invites parents to take a moment for themselves. Each of the brief readings offers comfort and hope as they capture the unique challenges and joys of raising a disabled child.

How do two parents who are blind take their children to the park? How is a mother with dwarfism treated when she walks her child down the street? How do Deaf parents know when their baby cries in the night? When writer and musician Eliza Hull was pregnant with her first child, like most parents-to-be she was a mix of excited and nervous. But as a person with a disability, there were added complexities. She wondered: Will the pregnancy be too hard? Will people judge me? Will I cope with the demands of parenting? More than 15 per cent of Australian households have a parent with a disability, yet their stories are rarely shared, their experiences almost never reflected in parenting literature. In We’ve Got This, twenty-five parents who identify as Deaf, disabled or chronically ill discuss the highs and lows of their parenting journeys and reveal that the greatest obstacles lie in other people’s attitudes. The result is a moving, revelatory and empowering anthology. As Rebekah Taussig writes, ‘Parenthood can tangle with grief and loss. Disability can include joy and abundance. And goddammit – disabled parents exist.’ Contributors include Jacinta Parsons, Kristy Forbes, Graeme Innes, Jessica Smith, Jax Jacki Brown, Nicole Lee, Elly May Barnes, Neangok Chair, Renay Barker-Mulholland, Micheline Lee and Shakira Hussein. We’ve Got This will appeal to readers of Growing Up Disabled in Australia and other titles in the Growing Up series.

Various person and situation factors have been examined as they affect coping in parenting a child with a disability. However, little data exists on the extent to which cultural system influences coping of parents from diverse cultural backgrounds. Informed by Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) transactional model of stress and coping, and Triandis' (1995) concept of individualist/collectivist cultures, the current study examined the ways ofcoping of 62 mothers and fathers from two different cultural systems (Anglo-Australian [individualist] and Greek-Australian [collectivist]). The focus of research was to quantitatively identify the coping resources that were antecedents to the selection of coping strategies and to qualitatively examine the subjective experience of parents from two diverse cultural systems caring for a child with a disability. The relationship between coping resources (depression, self-esteem, social interest, marital relationship) and coping strategies (problem-focused, seeking social support, blame self, wishful thinking and avoidance) was examined using a battery of five questionnaires. The subjective experiences of the parents were elicited via semi-structured interviews. Analysis of the data revealed that depression was not associated with any of the coping strategies for either the mothers or the fathers in the sample. For mothers, associations were found between self-esteem and wishful thinking and avoidance, and between dyadic adjustment and blame self. Social interest was not associated with any of the coping strategies for mothers. Level of education made no difference in the use of coping strategies for mothers. For fathers, associations were noted between self-esteem and wishful thinking, between dyadic adjustment and problem-focused coping, seeking social support, wishful thinking and avoidance. Fathers with high education made more use of problem-focused coping and fathers with low education differed in the use of wishful thinking and avoidance from the high education fathers. Mothers and fathers differed in their use of seeking social support as a coping strategy, with mothers seeking more social support than fathers. Cultural differences were found between fathers in the use of problem-focused and wishful thinking and avoidance coping strategies. Anglo-Australians used more problem-focused coping than their Greek-Australian counterparts. Greek-Australian fathers used more wishful thinking and avoidance than the Anglo-Australian fathers. Anglo-and Greek-Australian mothers did not differ in their use of coping strategies. Qualitative findings indicated both etic and emic experiences. Similar sources of stress, appraisals, coping resources and coping strategies characterised both groups' experiences of caring for their child with a disability. For Greek-Australian mothers and fathers, references to family, responsibility and stigma identified their collectivist cultural background. For the Anglo-Australian mothers and fathers, references to work, social networks and marital relationship identified their individualist cultural background. Overall, the results of the present study supported the relevance of the use of coping resources (social interest, self-esteem, depression, dyadic adjustment) in the study of ways of coping with child disability; and, supported the presence of differences in coping, both between gender, and between membership in a culturally diverse system. It is suggested that future research continues to investigate these resources using populations from other cultural groups and longitudinal designs so that their role in influencing coping under lifelong and uncontrollable circumstances with non-normative populations might be better understood. It is further suggested that health professionals take into consideration cultural differences and factor them into the care of culturally diverse families with children with a disability.

In this deeply sensitive book, parents of disabled children describe with affecting candor how they first confronted their shattering experience--and then recovered to emerge stronger, healthier, and abler to cope and help their children. Black-and-white photographs.

Special Needs Parenting: From Coping to Thriving offers emotional and spiritual resources for the journey of special needs parenting. Sharing personal insights as a theologian and the parent of an adult son with special needs, Rev. Dr. Lorna Bradley offers seven encouraging and practical tools to help the reader: o gain a deeper, grace-filled understanding of God's presenceo process deeply held feelings of grief and guilto discover strategies for patience, self-care, and healthy relationshipso find hope and healingPowerful for the individual reader, the built-in reflection and discussion questions make Special Needs Parenting an ideal, real-life resource for small groups. Special Needs Parenting is a must read for family members, pastors, and any person who works with special needs families. Dr. Bradley explores their challenges, grief, and joy with deep sensitivity, theological depth, and practical advice. A blessing to all who read it and allow their lives to be touched by wisdom born of personal experience and biblical scholarship