| Summary: | 碩士 === 輔仁大學 === 兒童與家庭學系碩士在職專班 === 104 === This study aimed at understanding the situation and feelings of the widowed fathers who gained intervention from family support. The author used in-depth interview with 5 widowed fathers and gathered data to provide suggestions for professional social workers, counselors, family educators, and the public for future research.
Findings of this study are as follows:
1.The widowed fathers tend to show great couple bond to his lost wife. Therefore the loss and grief in his heart is unbearable. During the crucial time, if his relationship with in-laws and families gets gradually alienated (even excluded as outsiders), it would deepened his loneliness .
2.Family support was the main support network for the widowed fathers. When encountering family emergencies, family members tried their best to render assistance, and the providers of assistance were usually female members. They mainly provide instrumental and informational support which help the family continue to work. However the emotional support might often be neglected.
3.If relatives neglect the feelings of the widowed fathers, mistrust, or see them as competitors of resources, enemies of their children, or someone who’s likely to cause injury to their children. Relatives would criticize, fling abuses or take strong actions to intervene the single-parent family. All the above-mentioned situations would do harm to the widowed fathers, made them feel sad and angry.
4.The dynamics went back and forth between family support and widowed fathers: If relatives gave recognition to the widowed fathers for family devotion, the widowed fathers would feel rewarded, so to strengthen their dedication to their family. On the contrary, if support changed into excessive control without respect, support wouldn’t be support anymore, it became pressure instead.
The study recommends that:
1.Professional social workers should respect widowed fathers as individuals, and pay attention to their family context, so to assist and educate the related family members to provide positive and firm support to avoid negative influence.
2.So far the understanding to widowed fathers are limited. Only through diversed aspects in research could researchers gain deeper understanding for this group. Masculinity limit the data gained through interview. The future researches study on widowed fathers could take other study methods into consideration to know them more. Besides, children’s age and gender may cause widowed fathers different situation in family support, it is recommended to take them into consideration for future researches.
3.Calling the public to understand the true meaning of support:
One has to watch the need of widowed fathers, render assistance in a striving and respectful attitude, then restore the balance of the family in proper and moderate support. So that it could actually bring firm and positive assistance to the family.
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