Challenging Dejection By Parents of Special Need Children

  Challenging Dejection By Parents of Special Need Children

......taken from Sfuran (Commissioner Disability)

The nature and content of parental depression vary according to the specific personal and interpersonal situations and temperament of the parents: some blame themselves, some blame others, some have intense anxiety along with depression, some have crying spells, some resign early to fate and some become abusive. Also, parental depression occurs in different phases and takes different forms accordingly. For example, the anxiety and attribution of blame in the pre-diagnostic stage of uncertainty is very different from the post-diagnostic feeling of subsequent fatigue of prolonged caring. Again, the age of the child and the parent is a significant factor. The parental stress increases when the child reaches adolescence and also when the parents reach middle age. The relative share of depression and anxiety depends on socio-economic condition, the extent of socially embarrassing or disruptive symptoms of the child and social support.