Features of attitudes and parenting skills among parents of different psychological types who have a child with intellectual disabilities

Statement of the problem. The article provides an overview of theoretical positions and research on the problem of parental attitudes and their impact on the educational process of children with intellectual disabilities. Child-parent relationships are one of the most important aspects studied by family psychology, family relations psychology, and age psychology. There is a lack of programs for correcting child-parent relationships in families with children with intellectual disabilities. The purpose of the article is to identify and characterize the attitudes of parents of different psychological types towards their “special” children, as well as the features of their upbringing models and parenting skills. Research materials and methods. The research methodology is represented by the fundamental principles of psychology: consistency, unity of consciousness and activity (L.S. Vygotsky, A.N. Leontiev, S.L. Rubinstein, etc.), provisions on the structure and functions of child-parent relations (R.V. Ovcharova, A.S. Spivakovskaya, E.G. Eidemiller, V.V. Justitskis, etc.); generalization of research on the features of child-parent relations in families raising children with developmental disabilities (L.V. Kuznetsova, I.I. Mamaichuk, Yu.P. Povarenkov, E.A. Savina, V.M. Sorokin, V.V. Tkacheva, L.M. Shipitsyna, O.B. Charova, etc.); ideas about the family as a priority institution of socialization of the individual (I.S. Kon, A.V. Mudrik, M.I. Rozhkov). Our study involved 50 respondents. Of these, 40 parents have a child with a diagnosis of mental retardation, 10 parents have children with mild mental retardation. All children are enrolled in school in Krasnoyarsk, age category is 7-10 years old. To diagnose the conscious and unconscious attitudes of parents towards their children with intellectual disabilities, the method “Unfinished sentences” was used, and to identify the parenting abilities of parents, V.V. Tkacheva’s questionnaire “Determining the parenting skills among parents of children with developmental disabilities” was used. To compare the samples, the Mann Whitney U-test was used, and the correlation analysis was based on the calculation of the Spearman correlation coefficient. Research results. The study showed that the attitudes of parents of an authoritarian psychological type towards their children are closely intertwined with their personal traits. 80 % of authoritarian parents emotionally accept their children, and 20 % reject them. In this group, 68 % of parents understand that their children have certain problems, while 32 % refuse to understand them. Adequate forms of interaction with children are observed in 72 % of authoritarian parents. Neurotic parents have different views on their children and their relationships with them. In the group of neurotic parents, 44 % of respondents accept their children, and 56 % reject them; 78 % understand children’s problems, 22 % do not understand; 67 % have adequate forms of interaction, and 33 % have inadequate ones. Psychosomatic parents have a positive attitude towards their children, wish them the best, and see their advantages and disadvantages. 75 % of psychosomatic parents experience emotional attachment to their children, 25 % - rejection. Almost all parents in this group are aware of their children’s problems (94 %), and also apply appropriate methods of influence to their children (87 %). Conclusion. It is concluded that the representations and conscious and unconscious attitudes of parents of different psychological types are associated with the personal characteristics of children with intellectual disabilities. The relationship between the educational skills of parents and the characteristics of their dominant psychological type is shown. The authors note that the problem of parents’ relations with “special” children has been studied for a long time, but there are few programs for correcting these relations.