The relation mother/child with disabilities: feelings and experiences

The present study aims at investigating the feelings and experiences of parents of children with disabilities. It was motivated by the idea of understanding the daily life of the parents of children that take part in the Relational Psychomotricity Project at UNIVATES. The protagonists of the study are the parents integrated in the project. The instruments used for data collection in this ethnographic qualitative study were interviews, field reports and analysis of documents. The study approached the following theoretical aspects: the primary relation, the medical relation and the social relation of the child with disability. The information is organized into the following categories, a) the feelings of the parents on occasion of the birth of a child with disability, b) the behavior of the medical staff when telling the fact to the parents, c) the needs of the parents in regard to their relations with their relatives and society, d) the feelings and needs with respect to educating a child with disability. The article concludes that the parents of children with disability re-evaluate their initial concepts, learn to value the potentialities of the child and require continuing reinforcement of their self-esteem for helping them in the educational process of their children.

Education, Special; Family relations; Family health