Structural relationships between parenting practices and happiness mediated by life satisfaction and quality of life in mothers of children with intellectual developmental disorder

Children with intellectual disabilities reduce the happiness of their parents, especially their mothers, due to their developmental, intelligence, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral disabilities. Relationships of parenting styles have been confirmed with various variables, but its relationships with happiness mediated by life satisfaction and quality of life in mothers with Children with intellectual disabilities have been neglected.

Structural relationships between parenting styles and happiness mediated by life satisfaction and quality of life in mothers of Children with intellectual disabilities.

The method of this study is correlational and structural equation modeling. The statistical population of the present study included all mothers with children with mental disabilities from vocational training centers under 14 years of age in South Khorasan, from which 153 people were selected by random sampling.
To collect information from the Oxford Happiness Scales (Argyle, Martin, & Crossland, 1989); Quality of Life (SF-36); Diner Life Satisfaction (1985) and Bamrind (1973) Parenting Styles Questionnaire were used. Data analysis was performed by structural equation modeling approach using partial least squares method.

Among parenting styles, only the effect of authoritative parenting style on happiness (path coefficient 0.216 and t-test 2.643) is positive and significant (P<0.01). The effect of authoritarian parenting style on happiness is negative and significant (P<0.01) and the effect of permissive style on happiness is not significant. Regarding the indirect effect, authoritative parenting style has a significant effect (P<0.01) on happiness through the mediating variable of life satisfaction at the level (P<0.05) and through the mediating variable of quality of life. While permissive and authoritarian parenting styles do not have a significant effect on happiness through mediating variables of quality of life and life satisfaction.

It seems that parenting style through satisfaction and quality of life can protect mothers with Children with intellectual disabilities against stress and help their happiness and well-being.