Coping Strategies of Parents having children with special needs in Lalaan Central School Special Education

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Families with a child who has special health care need to experience life differently than other families. Parents appear to carry the larger burden of care and may feel a need to be with their child at all times and experience stress related to coping with the heavy load of caregiving. the current descriptive research design is aimed to identify existing coping strategies of parents who have children with special needs and determine whether there is a relationship between coping strategies and the parents' demographic variables.

METHODS

The current research design was a descriptive design aimed to identify the coping strategies of parents who have children with special needs and determine whether there is a relationship between the coping strategies and the parents' demographic variables. Parent's demographic characteristics include age, marital status, educational level, number of children, sex and birth order of the child with special needs, family monthly income, and the nature of the child's disability.

RESULTS

Descriptive statistics will be reported on each of the five subscales, as well as the results of the open-ended question. This section will also discuss any significance found between demographic variables and coping strategies. more than one third (31.5%) of studied parents, their ages were more than forty years and the highest percent (47.9%) of them had a middle level of education. In relation to marital status, the majority (91.15%) of studied parents were married. Concerning the number of children, more than two thirds (68.5%) of parents had four or more children and (5.5%) of them had one child. In relation to the birth order of the child with special needs, the ranking of (40.4%) of them was the fourth or more. As regards the sex of the child with special needs, more than half of them (51.4%) were male. Regarding monthly income, more than half (52.7% ) of studied parents, their income was sufficient while the income of ( 47.3%) was not sufficient.

DISCUSSIONS

In general, parents of children with special needs are more withdrawn from society. However, previous reports have observed that some parents actively participate in parental self-help support groups. These parents tend to be educated with higher intellectual function, stable family backgrounds, no financial difficulties, efficient and motivated. Parents' attitudes, rather than their children's level of disabilities, seem to be the main determinant for active social participation.