Welcome to Holland – a study in parent experience, copingstrategies and interaction with school and municipality, of parents to children with Asperger syndrome.

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to examine, describe and analyse how a selection of parents to children with Asperger syndrome understand, experience and cope with their parenthood. To attain this purpose we focused on these following questions; How does the respondents view their parenthood?; What kind of strategies does the respondents use to cope with their parenthood on the basis on their child with Asperger syndrome?; How does the respondents experience the mesosystem interact with them regarding situations contenting strenuous and stress? We chose to do a qualitative study by conducting separate interviews with eight parents to children with Asperger syndrome. Then we analyzed the answers using an abductive research, we tested the empirical data against our choice of theoretical perspectives. The results shows; that several of the parents in the study have experiences of high strenuous and stress in combination the several roles their parenthood contained. Results also shows that the strategies the parent use are divided in active strategies with high coping skills; passive strategies with low coping skills; passive strategies with high coping skills and passive strategies with low coping skills. Results of the parents experiences of the mesosystems, regarding school and municipality, interaction with them concerning strenuous and stress obtained a majority of the parents, five of eight, that experienced the interaction as unsatisfying. One conclusion is that the interaction with the mesosystems and the parents coping strategies, out of Bronfenbrenners ecological theory perspective, mutually affect each other.