engleski

Parents of Children with Disabilities: Are They Happy?

Research so far has shown that the well-being of parents of children with disabilities is lower compared to parents of typically developed children. However, the vast majority of the research was conducted with that exact purpose, which might have led to distortion of participant’s answering process. In addition, participants were mostly chosen because they have or don’t have, a child with disabilities, while other relevant characteristics were poorly matched. The aim of the current research was to compare parents of children with disabilities to the matching group of parents of typically developed children regarding various well-being indicators, and specific sources of life satisfaction. This study was conducted as a component of CRO-WELL: longitudinal research on well-being in Croatia. In the samples gathered since the launch in September 2016, we identified 41 parents of children with disabilities. Each of them was matched to a very similar individual with typically developed children. Case match criteria were gender, age, education level, employment status, and monthly income per member of family, size of the hometown and number and age group of children. Consequently, we obtained two samples where the majority of participants were married, living in a large city, have a job and two thirds of them have completed either high school or college. Results indicate there was no difference in happiness or life satisfaction in general. If we look closer, differences emerged regarding satisfaction with leisure time and health, indicating that parents of children with disabilities are significantly less satisfied compared to parents of typically developed children. Furthermore, parents of children with disabilities less frequently felt pleasant or good, while more often they experienced sadness, negative or bad feelings. As a tool to deal with negative emotions, all parents mostly used positive coping techniques like expressing their feelings or taking actions to resolve the issue. Although this sample is convenient and small, the results indicated issues that should be taken into closer consideration. Details and implications will be discussed.

well-being, parents of children with disability, life satisfaction, happiness, affect regulation strategies

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