A qualitative analysis of mothers’ childrearing behaviour towards their disabled child

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Abstract

The present study provides a qualitative analysis of mothers’ childrearing behaviour focused on the coercive-inductive dimension, in particular in an effort to show that coerciveness is not always negative, but may be adaptive to the child's characteristics. Thirty-one mothers provided self-reports from a structured interview on their childrearing behaviour to the child in diverse situations. Data analyses examined the associations between the ratings of the mother's reports on the coercive-inductive dimension and three measures: the child's disability (mental, sensory and multiple), the child's personality traits and the child's observable behaviour. Results demonstrated that the mothers’ childrearing behaviours were adapted to their child's characteristics, in particular by combining degrees of coercive and inductive strategies according to situations. They contribute to qualify in a more articulated way the mothers’ childrearing behaviour than through more simple quantitative measures. The discussion finally underlies the interest in analyzing mothers’ reports for research on parent–child interaction and for clinical issue.

Section snippets

Participants

Data were gathered from French-speaking mothers with a disabled child in the three to six age range. The children came from the French-speaking part of Belgium and were regularly counselled by an early intervention team (Services d’Aide Précoce2

Disability-related differences

The mean score of autonomy (M = 3.81, S.D. = 0.55) was higher in the subsample of children with sensory disability (M = 4.04, S.D. = 0.53) than in the subsample of children with multiple disability (M = 3.70, S.D. = 0.47) and in the subsample of those with mental disability (M = 3.75, S.D. = 0.60), but the analysis of variance mean score of autonomy (dependant variable) × child's disability (3) indicated no significant effects.

However, the mothers’ CRB were differentially distributed across the eight categories

Discussion

The first objective aimed at qualifying the mothers’ CRB based on reports, by means of a bipolar axis coerciveness versus inductiveness, is reflected in the results. Correlations between the eight categories as well as the distribution of data support the theoretical relevance of the bipolar axis. Furthermore, the analyses on complex sequences based on successive and combined categories of CRBs revealed that sequences were not equally frequent in the mothers’ interviews. Sequences from C and D

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