Childhood experience, family support and parenting by people with intellectual disability

ABSTRACT

Background

Parents with intellectual disability, like all other parents, are embedded in networks of capability-enhancing and/or capability-inhibiting relationships. This study investigated links between how parents with intellectual disability experienced their upbringing, continuity and discontinuity in familial relationships, and their assessments of their own parenting.

Method

Structured interviews, incorporating scales and open-ended questions, were conducted with 91 parents in receipt of specialist services for people with intellectual disability, including 82 mothers and 9 fathers.

Results

Most participants (81%) had experienced at least one form of childhood abuse or household adversity. Participants who recalled a more positive upbringing, including less adversity and more parental care, tended to have stronger support networks and reported greater parenting role satisfaction and emotional warmth in their interactions with their own children.

Conclusion

The results highlight the need to understand parenting by people with intellectual disability in biographical and relational context.

KEYWORDS:

• Parenting
• intellectual disability
• childhood abuse
• social support

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a partnership development grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Partnership Development).