| Summary: | 碩士 === 亞洲大學 === 心理學系 === 103 === The purpose of this study is to explore parenting experience and resilience in parents of children with autism from the perspective of ecological system theory. Purposive sampling was adopted in this qualitative research. Five parents were invited to participate in at least three individual in-depth interviews. A semi-structured interview guide was developed by the researcher to facilitate the interview process. All interviews were transcribed and analyzed.
There were 12 themes emerged from participants’ parenting experience. They were: (1) awareness of the child’s exceptionaly; (2) negative interpersonal interaction with medical personnel; (3) negative interpersonal interaction with school teachers and students; (4) loss resulted from atypical parent-child interaction; (5) negative family interaction; (6) frustration over incomprehensive government policy; (7) loss of social support resulted from being misunderstood; (8) struggle between parental responsibility and work; (9) backfire from parent support group when it is too stressed to be other parents’ emotional dumpster; (10) limited accessibility and availability of resources resulted from regional differences; (11) loss of time and health; and (12) high child-rearing expenses.
Under the framework of ecological system theory, protective factors to resilience in parents were described: (1) parent-child interactions and child rearing beliefs, worldview and personal characteristics, altruistism, advocacy, and meaning-making at the microsystem level; (2) self-empowerment and self-care, family support, and positive experiences from school at the mesosystem level; (3) the availability of medical and community resources at the exosystem level, and (4) government policy and education system at the macrosystem level.
Based on research findings, further research as well as implications for professional practice is delineated.
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