Date Presented 04/05/19
This paper compares the findings from two grounded theory studies examining how mothers of typically developing children and mothers of children with developmental disabilities make everyday parenting decisions. This knowledge base can equip OTs to deliver competent family-centered pediatric OT services.
Primary Author and Speaker: Chetna Sethi
BACKGROUND: Guided by the principals of life course sociology (Elder, 1998) and the transactional perspective (Dickie, Cutchin, & Humphry, 2006), parenting occupations can be understood as transactions among parents’ historical contexts, their cultural situation as a whole, and their social roles. It is, therefore, a fair assumption that family routines are different for typically developing children versus children with disabilities. As such, parents are usually guided by a variety of conditions and factors while making everyday parenting decisions for their children. The exploration of the process of parental decision-making, especially in the context of developmental disabilities, is missing from the OT literature. This paper examined the differences in the factors that influence maternal decision-making for typically developing children with those that have children with developmental disabilities.
METHODS: Two grounded theory studies were conducted with mothers of typically developing children between the ages of 2 and 6, and mothers of children with developmental disabilities between the ages of 3 and 11. Both studies explored how mothers manage everyday interactions with their children and make decisions regarding everyday parenting. Charmaz’s (2014) constructivist grounded theory methodology was used to analyze twenty-two interviews from twelve mothers of typically developing children, and 5 interviews and 2 focus groups from an additional 12 mothers of children with developmental disabilities. Open, focused, axial, and theoretical coding were carried out for the two studies independently. The results presented here are the contrasting findings from both studies.
RESULTS: Mothering can be understood as a relational role where mothers engage in occupations to fulfil these roles. These include caregiver,nurturer, educator, protector, and learner. The roles identified by mothers of typically developing children (caregiver, nurturer, educator, protector, and learner), were reiterated by the mothers of children with developmental disabilities, with a few salient differences. Mothers of children with developmental disabilities discussed being protectors, learners and educators more so than parents of typically developing children. The findings indicated that these categories are not mutually exclusive, as every mother in both studies described engaging in occupations to fulfill all of these roles either singularly or in concert with each other. However, as a consequence of the child’s disability, mothers found themselves “parenting out of fear”, seeking more information about their child’s disability, and educating other children and family members about the child’s disability in order to promote advocacy.
IMPLICATIONS FOR OT: These findings have several implications for occupational therapy practice. First, instead of simply describing parenting occupations, the findings of these studies explore the reasoning behind parental decision-making in the context of a child’s disability. Understanding this parent-child relationship as a transactional process rather than describing it as a bidirectional interaction is a key element of competent family-centered care. Finally, the findings from these studies attempt to understand mothers as more holistic occupational beings, including their historical contexts, their present socio-cultural situations, and their everyday parenting occupations, regardless of child’s disability status.
References
Charmaz, K. (2014). Constructing Grounded Theory (Second Edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd.
Dickie, V., Cutchin, M., & Humphry, R. (2006). Occupation as transactional experience: A critique of individualism in occupational science. Journal of Occupational Science, 13, 83-93.
Elder, G.H., Jr. (1998). The life course as developmental theory. Child Development, 69, 1, 1-12.
