The discovery of life: A study on the resilience of parents of children with intellectual disabilities

• Main Authors: Tai-Heung Lee, 李蒂香
• Other Authors: 林妙容
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/vbahaa

碩士 === 國立暨南國際大學 === 輔導與諮商研究所 === 103 === The Purpose of this research is to study and understand the challenges that the parents of Intellectually Disabled Children (IDC) may face during the course of taking care of and bringing up the children. The study also touches on how the parents react in response to such challenges as well as how they regulate themselves to eventually achieve self resilience and self discovery in life. This research adopts the Depth Interview Methods of Qualitative Research. Parents of considerably high level of adaption of three IDCs are invited to participate in the research. The study result displays the strength of resilience of individual participant as well as the importance of such strength to their life. The following are the key findings of the study: 1. When the parents learned that their children were diagnosed to be IDC their immediate reactions were negative including confusion about the diagnosis result, shedding tears emotionally, grieving, resistance, refusal to accept the fact, anxiousness, helplessness, despair, needing comfort from others etc. 2. Parents encountered adverse experience including physiological / psychological issues of the IDC children, difficulties in taking care of IDC children as well as the impact of having IDC children on other members in the family. 3. To cope with the fact of having IDC, the parents showed their quality of resilience including: (1) Resilience actions in response to adverse experience including coping attitude, coping strategy and self regulation. (2) Inherent protective factors including optimism, flexibility, openness, hopefulness, peacefulness, acceptance of suffering and limitation, willingness to let go, positive way of thinking, doing one’s best and self recognition, being calm, religious and positive philosophy, being grateful, self control and self believe, endurance, being active and persistent. (3) External protective factors from family members, from the school as well as from the society. 4. The resilience process impacts IDC parents’ subsequently in many ways such as renewal of mindset, increase in generosity, being contented, having better ability in facing challenges, understanding of others’ difficulty, acceptance of different opinions, acceptance of failure, finding more meaning in life, appreciation of the truth of love, taking their experience in life to new heights. According to the results of the study, the researcher offers suggestions which would hopefully benefit other IDC parents, professional social workers as well as other researchers for their reference.