Challenges of Parenting Disabled Children

Disability, as defined by Berger (2004, p. 524), refers to "a persons inability to perform activities that most others can." Tragically, while most expectant parents can anticipate the birth of a child with no major physiological abnormalities, birth defects, or developmental deficits that occur as the child matures, about 3 percent of all babies born in the United States each year have major malformations leading to various disabilities while another 4 percent have severe problems such as deafness or mental retardation that become apparent in the first year of life (Berger, 2004). Approximately 15 percent of all children are born susceptible to learning problems of various sorts, such as difficulty in developing language or social skills. At issue in this essay is a discussion of the many challenges facing parents of children born with severe disabilities. These challenges, said Berger (2004), often include difficulties in financing the cost of necessary care, a lack of support for severely stressed parents, difficulty in parent-child bonding, parental conflict and marital disintegration, and lapses in care needed to support the child's optimum development.

The variety of severely disabling conditions that can occur is astounding (Hunt & Hunt, 2004). Major congenital malformations (including spina bifida, Downs Syndrome, cleft pallet, missing or atrophied limbs, and so forth) are linked to a variety of causes including chromosomal abnormalities (6 percent), singl

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hild's handicap as their own mistake because children are often perceived as an extension of their parents. Parents of severely disabled children often avoid being seen and experience embarrassment when they face concern from others about their children. For many parents whose children are disabled, these factors combine to make it difficult to provide appropriate care for the child. Sloper and Beresford (2006) pointed out that about 55 percent of families with disabled children live in poverty and face extreme difficulty in providing the financial resources that are needed to care for a disabled child. Many severely disabled children require frequent and multiple hospitalizations. Some may need numerous surgical interventions over the course of their life. This in turn makes it difficult for parents to work outside the home or to obtain appropriate child care. Mothers with disabled children are much less likely to have jobs than other mothers, complicating the difficulty of caring for a child's needs. Sloper and Beresford (2006) also emphasized that disabled children and their families lack suitable housing and have unmet needs for assistive devices and equipment. Others lack suitable leisure facilities and accessi

Category: Psychology - P