Developing a Parenting Program Based on the Experiences of Mothers of Children with Intellectual Disability (ID)

Intellectual disability is considered as a developmental disorder that has a great impact on the family, especially on mothers. The aim of the present study was to develop a parenting program based on the study of mothers of children with intellectual disability. Participants were mothers of children with intellectual disability (ID) in Yazd Province who were selected via the purposive sampling method. They had at least one child with intellectual disability and intended to talk about their experiences. Sampling and interviewing continued until saturation (12 mothers.) To develop the program in a qualitative method, the mothers’ lived-experiences were explored through in-depth interviews with 12 mothers of children with intellectual disability. The main themes of the experiment were discovered through the Colaizzi method. Then, based on the main discovered themes, a review of all parenting methods and related programs (presented in various books and articles) was devoted to the development of parenting sessions. Finally, the parenting program was designed using the focal group methodology between the specialist counselors of Yazd Schools of Special Needs and the CVR coefficient for each session was calculated and approved. Hence its content and formal validity were confirmed. Findings from the lived-experiences of mothers of children with intellectual disability were summarized in 7 main themes (experience of blame, future worries, child behavior problems, interruptions in interaction, hot and social isolation, negative thoughts and feelings, and positive achievements (and 16 themes encoded as subgroups of the main themes. After that, the parenting program based on the experiences of mothers of children with intellectual disability was developed using the main components of compassion therapy and positive parenting method in 9 sessions. Since the design of this program has used the experiences of mothers as main audiences as well as a comprehensive review of the scientific resource to meet their needs, and all training sessions have been reviewed and approved by relevant professionals, the designed program has acceptable content and formal validity and can probably be effective on the development of children with intellectual disability and their families.