2025 Volume 58 Issue 2 Pages 79-91
The purpose of this study was to clarify the experience process of parents who have dealt with delinquent children and attended self-help groups, to generate a hypothetical model of the parental experience process, and to examine support. In this study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 parents who had been dealing with delinquent children for a long time. The verbatim records obtained from the interviews were analyzed using the Modified Grounded Theory approach. As a result, 26 concepts, 8 categories, and 6 category groups were generated. Parents experienced the process as follows: (1) struggling to stop delinquency, (2) being pushed around, blaming oneself, and becoming isolation, (3) broadening one’s perspective, (4) accepting the child from the time the delinquency started until it settled down. This process was facilitated by new encounters which supported the parents in being parents and broadened the parents’ perspectives, suggesting that the parents came to accept themselves and accept their children. This study suggested that the parents of delinquent children benefits from meeting people who can broaden their knowledge of delinquency, share problems, talk and listen together, and think collectively about the issues.
