A Phenomenological Exploration of the Lived Experience of Mothers of Children with Learning Disorders from Their Child's Emotional-Behavioral Problems

Learning disorders are one of the considerable topics in educational psychology. Children with learning disabilities experience more emotional problems than their peers. Hence, there will be more challenges for the parents of these children, which can add to the complexity of the parenting experience. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the main elements in the lived experience of mothers of children with learning disabilities of the emotional and behavioral problems of their children.

In this research, the phenomenological research method was used to investigate the lived experience of mothers of children with learning disabilities to cope with their children's emotional-behavioral problems. Therefore, among the clients of learning disability treatment centers in Tehran, to the point of saturation, 14 mothers of children with learning disabilities participated in in-depth and semi-structured interviews; After recording and transcribing the interviews, the data was analyzed by the Colaizzi method.

In the analysis of descriptive codes of interviews, 137 primary concepts were extracted. Combining similar concepts created 31 sub-concepts and 7 main concepts. The 7 main concepts are; Social Communication Impairment, Marital Relationship Impairment, Challenging Parenting, Inefficient Education System, Decrease in psychologically rich life, Experience of Negative Emotions, and Physical-Psychological Problems.

The concepts found in the study showed that mothers of children with learning disabilities face many difficulties due to their children's academic and emotional-behavioral problems that lead to the experience of feelings of burnout in parenting and require social and clinical attention.