Psycho-Social Concomitants of Coping Behavior among Mothers of Mentally Retarded Children

Parents of children with disability have additional demand than the parents of children without disability. Perhaps because of this reason dysfunctional families are particularly noticeable in medical setting, much of the literature on families with children with disability has approached family stress from a deficit model. Successful, adaptive functioning of families with children with disability has not received sufficient attention. In fact, there is a growing body of knowledge, which indicates that the presence of a family member with a disability may contribute to the strengthening of the entire family unit, as well as contribute positively to the quality of life of individual members of the family. Children with supportive parents have fewer problems and also reported positive change in life. These parents, especially mothers used problem-focused coping, religious-faith and denial-blame. They also reported that as coping increases psychological stress decreases. Social factors play important role in coping. Support by others to the mothers of developmentally delayed children act as the facilitators in carrying up the life ahead. Parents especially mothers of developmentally delayed shows high resilient behavior and high quality of the dyadic relationship.