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A phenomenological investigation into the impact of parenthood: Giving a voice to mothers with visual impairment in the United Kingdom
- Author:
- MOLDEN Helen
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Visual Impairment, 32(2), 2014, pp.136-147.
- Publisher:
- Sage
Despite psychological support for parents increasing in prominence in recent UK public policy, there has been a minimal focus on parenting with a disability and specifically scant information on the experiences of what it is like to be a parent with visual impairment. Nine UK mothers, aged 32–47 years, each with a child under 10, were interviewed by telephone to examine how the experience of becoming a parent impacted them. Interview transcripts were examined using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). This article focuses on two meta-themes in the findings: (1) ‘struggles around independence’ and (2) ‘visibility and the impact of the other’s gaze’. They raise issues around both theory and practice of interest to those working in psychological services for people with visual impairment, including (1) the possibility of a new integrative model to conceptualise the experience of parenting with a disability and (2) the mothers’ daily experience of stigmatisation and marginalisation in interaction with the other. (Publisher abstract)
Constrained labour: material employment when children have disabilities
- Authors:
- GORDON Meg, ROSENMAN Linda, CUSKELLY Monica
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 20(3), May 2007, pp.236-246.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
This study compared the workforce participation levels of mothers with and without dependent children with disabilities to provide recent data that could be considered representative of the range of families with dependent children with disabilities. Secondary cross-sectional data from a representative Australian household survey were used and subject to quantitative analysis. Significantly lower levels of workforce participation were found among mothers of children with disabilities compared with mothers without children with disabilities. There was no evidence of a lesser desire to work. Mother's partnership status and having a child with a severe/profound activity limitation each impacted on the nature of the differences in level of workforce participation. The results raise concerns about the particularly low levels of part-time work among some mothers of children with disabilities, and about the impact of having a child with severe/profound activity limitations. Questions are raised about the impact of sole parent status in combination with having a child with a disability.
Negotiating mothering against the odds: gastrostomy tube feeding, stigma, governmentality and disabled children
- Authors:
- CRAIG Gillian M., SCAMBLER Graham
- Journal article citation:
- Social Science and Medicine, 62(5), March 2006, pp.1115-1125.
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
Using the findings of a small-scale qualitative investigation based on in-depth interviews with mothers attending a tertiary paediatric referral centre in London, this paper explores professional and parental discourses in relation to gastrostomy tube feeding and disabled children. Detailed accounts are given of women's struggles to negotiate their identities, and those of their children, within dominant discourses of mothering and child-centredness. Constructions of feeding practices as coercive conflict with normative expectations of ‘good mothering’ and the ‘idealised autonomous’ child. Although notions of ‘stigmatised identities’ featured in women's accounts of feeding children, both orally and by tube, stigma fails to explain why mothers are rendered culpable within expert discourses. Prevailing theories of stigma and coping are interrogated and judged to be more descriptive than explanatory. Felt stigma is posited as an aspect of governmentality.
'It's more of a production': accomplishing mothering using a mobility device
- Authors:
- McKEEVER Patricia, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Disability and Society, 18(2), March 2003, pp.179-197.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
This qualitative study investigated the conditions and experiences of mothers who used wheelchairs and scooters for full-time mobility. In focused, open-ended interviews, 11 mothers of children aged 6 months to 18 years described sociospatial obstacles and facilitators that influenced how they cared for their children and homes. Results suggest that mothering with a disability consists of embodied and emplaced practices. Women often felt 'out of place' as mothers given the relationship between mothering discourse and mobility devices. Furthermore, the embeddedness of mothering in place meant that the social and material conditions of place served not only as antecedents to mothering challenges, but also structured possible solutions.
Disability, the family and society: listening to mothers
- Author:
- READ Janet
- Publisher:
- Open University Press
- Publication year:
- 2000
- Pagination:
- 149p.,bibliog.
- Place of publication:
- Buckingham
Explores caring for a disabled child from the mother's perspective, looking at ways in which mothers find themselves acting as mediators between their children and a world that can be hostile to their interests. Begins with an examination of a study in which mothers from diverse backgrounds detail the ways in which they attempt to represent their children to the world, and the world to their children in both formal and informal interactions. These experiences and perspectives are linked to wider research and theory on motherhood and caring, the life patterns of disabled children and their families, and the discrimination faced by disabled children and adults.
The role of grandparents in the social support system of mothers of children with a physical disability
- Author:
- FINDLER Liora S.
- Journal article citation:
- Families in Society, 81(4), 2000, pp.370-381.
- Publisher:
- The Alliance for Children and Families
The structural and functional dimensions of perceived social support were examined, with particular emphasis on the importance of grandparents as support providers to the mothers of children with special needs. Forty-seven mothers of children with cerebal palsy and 43 mothers of children withoyut such a disability (comparison group) were interviewed in their homes using 9 social support network list a special version of a support funstions scaled and satisfaction with social support. The results indicate that differences between the two groups were found only in the structural dimension network size. However, no differences in the analysis of the functional dimension and satisfaction from support were revealed. In both research groups, grandparents were highly ranked in comparison with other support providers, and a clear hierarchy was revealed; maternal grandmothers were perceived to be the most important figures providing more emotional than instrumental support and received the highest score in terms of satisfaction from support. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.
Play services for disabled children: mothers' satisfaction
- Authors:
- PETRIE Pat, POLAND Gill
- Journal article citation:
- Children and Society, 12(4), September 1998, pp.283-294.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
A study of six play services for disabled school children used mixed methods to investigate the perspectives of mothers and children. This paper reports the range of mothers' satisfaction as expressed in semistructured interviews. There was a high level of satisfaction. Play services were seen as alleviating difficulties by providing an element of respite, and as providing child-centred benefits such as play, companionship and varied experiences. Grounds for dissatisfaction included insufficient availability of services, lack of information about them, insufficient attention towards children from staff, and activities which were not age appropriate.
Mental health care needs and preferences for mothers of children with a disability
- Authors:
- GILSON K. M., et al
- Journal article citation:
- Child: Care, Health and Development, 44(3), 2018, pp.384-391.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Background: Mothers of children with a disability are at increased risk of poor mental health compared with mothers of typically developing children. The aim of the study was to describe the mental health care needs and preferences for support of mothers of children and young people aged 0–25 years with a disability. Methods: A cross‐sectional study was used, using an online survey with 294 mothers of children with a disability. Questions were asked about mental health, perceived need for support, barriers to accessing mental health care, and preferences for support. Descriptive and chi‐squared analyses were performed. Results: High rates of mental ill health were self‐identified in the previous 12 months, with reported clinically significant depression (44%), anxiety (42%), and suicidality (22%). Nearly half (48%) of the mothers reported high to very high psychological distress. Although 75% of mothers perceived a need for professional support, only 58% attempted to access this. Key barriers to accessing support were caregiving duties making it difficult to schedule appointments (45%) and not perceiving the mental health problem as serious enough to require help (36%). Individual counselling was the preferred type of support (66%) followed by professionally guided relaxation (49%) and education about mental health (47%). Support was considered most critical at the time of diagnosis and during medical intervention for their child. Conclusions: Although mental health problems were common and mothers perceived the need for professional help, several key barriers were preventing mothers from accessing help. Our study suggests that improving mothers' knowledge of when and where to seek help (mental health literacy) may encourage their access to support. There also needs to be more accessible treatment to mothers given the high care demands that are placed upon them. (Edited publisher abstract)
Mothers with physical disabilities caring for young children
- Authors:
- JACOB Jean, KIRSHBAUM Megan, PRESTON Paul
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Social Work in Disability and Rehabilitation, 16(2), 2017, pp.95-119.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia, USA
Seventy-one U.S. mothers with a physical disability who had a child aged 0 to 3 years responded to a survey about the system of care used for their child. Results indicated that mothers participated in all different types of care (physical, comforting, playing, limit setting, and taking the child outside the home). Partners and participants’ mothers provided the most assistance with care. Mothers were generally satisfied with assistance received from others. This article explores how mothers remain central to their children with others assisting with the child’s care and the impact of such assistance on mothers’ relationships with partners and children. (Publisher abstract)
Parenting stress in mothers and fathers of a child with a hemiparesis: sources of stress, intervening factors and long-term expressions of stress
- Authors:
- BUTCHER P. R., WIND T., BOUMA A.
- Journal article citation:
- Child: Care, Health and Development, 34(4), July 2008, pp.530-541.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
A hemiparesis is a disorder in the control of muscle activity in one side of the body secondary to a non-progressive defect in the developing brain. In a substantial minority of children with a hemiparesis, motor impairments are accompanied by behavioural problems. This combination confronts parents with several persistent, frequently intense, sources of stress. At the same time, it is likely to reduce the effectiveness of psychosocial resources, such as feelings of competence, which would normally buffer the impact of the stressors. This study aimed to investigate the association between motor and behavioural problems in children with a hemiparesis and symptoms of stress in their parents, with particular attention to psychosocial factors which may mediate between the child's problems and parents' symptoms of stress. Questionnaires assessing the medical, functional and behaviour problems of the child, and the parents' experience of stress were completed by the mothers and fathers of 108 children with a hemiparesis who were members of the Association for the Motor Handicapped in the Netherlands. Both parents reported (extremely) high levels of long-term stress significantly more frequently than parents in a normative sample. Indices of long-term stress were associated with the child's behavioural problems and, less strongly, with dysfunctionality in daily life. However, behavioural problems and dysfunctionality also reduced parents' feelings of competence and social support. A mediation analysis showed that feelings of incompetence and social isolation mediated between the child's problems and the parents' symptoms of stress. Fathers and mothers did not differ in level of reported stress, or in the associations between the child's problems and degree of experienced stress. Findings suggests that one focus of intervention should be the alleviation of parenting stress with particular attention to increasing perceived competence in the parenting role and reducing feelings of social isolation.