Growing
Up with Parents who have Learning Difficulties
(Grantholders:
Tim Booth and Wendy Booth; Funded by The Joseph Rowntree Foundation)
Background
The study was concerned
with the longer-term outcomes of being brought up by parents
with learning difficulties and what the experience of children
who grow up in such families reveals about the limits of good-enough
parenting.
By exploring how
the children of parents widely judged to operate on the edges
of competence fare in later life, and how they reflect on their
own childhood experience, the study was intended to thrown new
light on the links between parental competence and child outcomes
as well as on the process of parenting itself.
Research Aims
- To explore what
it means to be brought up by parents with learning difficulties
through the experience of their adult children.
- To investigate
the longer term outcomes for older (adult) children of being
raised by parents with learning difficulties.
- To examine the
relationship between parental competence, family functioning
and child outcomes.
- To improve understanding
of the notion of parental adequacy, especially as used in child
care practice and child protection work.
- To use the evidence
and insights generated by the study to provide practical guidance
for professionals and service providers.
Research Methods
The study adopted
a life story approach using biographical methods to capture the
experience of growing up with disabled parents.
Thirty people (16
men and 14 women) took part in the study. Their ages ranged from
18 to 42 years from the men and 16 to 37 years for the women,
with a median age group of 27 years: over half (60%) were between
18-30 years old.
The principal method
of data collection was depth interviewing. Eighty two interviews
were completed with the 30 informants.
The guiding purpose
of the interviews was to produce detailed personal accounts of
people's childhoods, family lives and relationships, and their
passage into adulthood, that are true to the lived experience
of children brought up by parents with learning difficulties.
Fieldwork began
in September 1994 and was completed in April 1996.
A full account of
the study is given in Growing
Up with Parents who have Learning Difficulties
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