Project 174119

Parenting is among the most challenging of human adult endeavours. When parents are raising children with lives that are ¿complicated¿ by long-term problems of physical or mental health, development or illness, parenting challenges are multiplied significantly. In clinical practice, there is an implicit assumption that the type and quality of parenting provided by mothers, alone and/or in conjunction with fathers, or by fathers alone, plays a significant role in the emotional, behavioural, social and quality of life outcomes of this vulnerable population. Studies increasingly demonstrate the difference that parenting behaviours (what parents do when they parent), parenting cognitions (attributions, beliefs, representations of self as a parent) and parenting styles (patterns that best describe the nature of their transactions with their child) make to children with and without neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD). However, less is known about how the social and family context of parenting makes a difference to how parents parent their child. Similarly, the extent to which parenting is informed by child characteristics is not well understood in this population. How mothers alone and/or in conjunction with fathers experience and negotiate parenting children with various types of NDD may be completely different from parents of children who do not have NDD. We propose a number of related projects to answer these questions: a synthesis of existing literature, quantitative analysis of Canadian population-based data, qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with mothers and fathers of children with NDD, and a review of federal/provincial/territorial policies. Findings from these studies will lay the foundation for developing policy and practice guidelines as well as future studies that will evaluate uptake of this knowledge.