This goal of this study is to understand, from the mother's view, the difficulties that the mothers living with children having adult intellectual disabilities are facing. That is, this study explores the process of raising children that mothers have ...
This goal of this study is to understand, from the mother's view, the difficulties that the mothers living with children having adult intellectual disabilities are facing. That is, this study explores the process of raising children that mothers have been experienced in accordance with the disabled children's biography and provides detail plan to operate family welfare program for the families with intellectual disabilities by revealing the nature in their lives. The main question in this study is "How the mothers have raised their children with adult intellectual disabilities".
In the study, 8 mothers of children with intellectual disabilities selected by snowball sampling, and data was collected through narrative interviews by Schütze. For data analysis, 'the structure of biographical processes' and 'the biographical-narrative interview analysis' by Schütze were used.
First of all, the researcher looked into the individual biographies of 8 mothers to re-illuminate the lives of the mother who have been raised the children with intellectual disabilities. Through this process, it was observed that they faced uncountable many crisis and problems while they were raising their children and their had various type of attitudes toward the problems. However the mothers as they recognize their children as their own share that they must protect, accepted the situation and have lived without losing hope although it was tough.
The study looked into how the mothers' lives were influenced from raising the children with intellectual disabilities. The results are as followings: First, in the childhood of the children with intellectual disabilities, the biggest concern of mothers was from the diagnosis of intellectual disabilities on their children and their anxieties on the problems in schooling. Second, during 'school age/adolescent period', the mothers appeared to be influenced mostly by school, teachers, normal students, mothers of normal/disabled children. Third, the mothers of the children with intellectual disabilities in 'adult age' appeared to be influenced from even wider range factors since their children starts new life in new society other than school.
To look into the process of changes in the mothers' experience, this study restructured the biography of each mother and analyzed them. The process of raising children can be regarded as the process of 'endless attempts for normal life'. The first stage is the period where the mother and children fall down and finally step in
the society. The second stage is the period where the mothers and disabled children crash themselves against the world. The third stage is the period where the mothers and children prepare for new challenge to the world. As their children graduate from the school system, mothers were facing an important time for tough decision. Especially in this study, the mothers were making detail actions about the marriage plans of their children with disabilities and they revealed strong will to continuously support their children because of the sense of guilt that it may give a burden to normal children.
The mothers could feel that the number of job positions for the disabled is continuously growing as the employment programs for the disabled is invigorated in Korean society. Also the mothers were directly feeling the changes to the welfare society such as operation of voluntary assistants program supporting the families with the disabled. Therefore although they still have heavy burden that they have to support their children for whole life, they are making continuous challenges to live as ordinary members of society together with their children.
This study has a meaning in that it provided the specific features of the experience of mothers who have been raised the children with intellectual disabilities and that it emphasized the child rearing experience of mothers by interpreting the detail process. At the same time, the study has an implication in that it brings up the biographical viewpoint focusing on direct experience of the mothers. To relieve the difficulties in practice that the mothers of the
children with intellectual disabilities are encountering, diverse family welfare programs should be continuously operated.