Abstract
The purpose of this study was to identify the process through which mothers of disabled children adapt to their child's disability while they engage in rehabilitative care. Thus, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 mothers of children with severe motor and intellectual disabilities (SMID), and their verbatim statements were analyzed using the Modified Grounded Theory Approach. The mothers appeared to repeatedly grapple with the question of how they should engage during their child's rehabilitation, and experienced conflict in reconciling their fatigue with their desire to improve the child's capacities. At the same time, the mothers came across people who accepted their child as he/she is, started to recognize the dignity and courage of their child, and adopted a defiant attitude to societal pressure. This helped the mothers recognize that their values and perspective were changing and they could internalize their own emotional stance. While the mothers appeared to struggle initially with the dichotomy of striving to improve the child's capacities and abandoning any such effort, their attitude eventually changed as they adopted a more stable approach, wherein they kept encouraging their child while maintaining their own equilibrium. In light of these findings, rehabilitation experts should bear in mind that a mother's acceptance of their child's disability constantly fluctuates as she undergoes a trial-and-error process.
