Abstract
Objective: Resilience is defined as the dynamic process of positive adaptation despite the experience of adversity. The aims of this study were to apply the concept of resilience to the mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which we call “parenting resilience” for rearing a child with ASD, and to explain the construct of parenting resilience. Methods: Interviews were conducted with 23 mothers of adults with ASD to collect data on rearing these children from infancy to adulthood. Data were analyzed using a modified grounded-theory approach. Results: The analytic theme was the thought process from the problems associated with raising developmentally challenged children to the implementation of the appropriate coping method. We proposed a model comprising twelve concepts and five categories, i. e., “a sense of motherhood”, “self-efficacy”, “knowledge of the child's characteristics”, “perceived social support”, and “foresight”. The model assumes that a sense of motherhood and self-efficacy motivate these mothers to cope with the problems associated with developmentally challenged children, and they derive the way of dealing with it from knowledge of the child's characteristics, perceived social support, and foresight. Discussion: We suggest that the construct of parenting resilience for rearing a child with ASD is composed of the proposed categories and concepts.
