Research finds that parents of children with disabilities experience higher levels of stress and anxiety—and it’s not hard to understand why. These parents often have more demanding parental tasks, like dealing with difficult behaviors or getting mobility-impaired children in and out of cars and bathrooms.
But there’s another reason: Parents who have a child with a disability—as about 17% of U.S. parents do, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—are also often criticized for how they parent the child. Those whose children have so-called invisible disabilities, such as autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, are also sometimes accused of causing the associated behavior issues through faulty parenting, according to Danielle Peters, a therapist who specializes in parents of children with disabilities.
These judgments and criticisms end up being a significant source of stress. Stanislawa Byra of the Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin, Poland, recently studied how mothers’ reactions to them might affect their psychological well-being. She found that choosing to let go of the hurts caused by criticism or ignorant comments—though it can be challenging—can make a difference. Parents can’t change how others behave, but forgiveness can offer them a useful way to respond.
Two kinds of forgiving
In a 2024 paper published in the Journal of Pediatric Nursing, Byra documents that mothers who forgave a transgression—a specific instance they recalled when someone hurt them because of their child’s disability—had better psychological well-being overall.
The study surveyed 174 Polish mostly married mothers of children with disabilities, including intellectual, physical, and autism spectrum.
Forgiveness is easier said than done, of course. Byra’s study considered two types of forgiveness. A person may decide to forgive a transgression—or they may successfully forgive in a way that lessens their negative feelings about the transgression. The research used evidence-based questionnaires, the Emotional Forgiveness Scale and the Decision to Forgive Scale, to identify each of these forms of forgiveness related to a transgression that the participants described.
Mothers who had decided to forgive and those whose negative feelings had diminished had well-being scores still higher than their peers who had not forgiven. There was only a small bump in well-being among the moms whose feelings about the incident had shifted when compared to those who had simply decided to forgive. That’s good news because deciding to forgive can be easier than meaningfully forgiving.
Many things to forgive
Byra also explored the kinds of offenses that seemed easier to forgive. She found that when offenses came from people with whom mothers had valuable relationships, they were more often forgiven. A meaningful apology from the offender was also correlated with forgiveness—and, with it, well-being. This can be helpful to know for non-parents who may later regret too-freely-offered opinions.
Byra observed that self-forgiveness is an important factor, even though it’s not included explicitly in this study. For therapist Peters, self-forgiveness seems to be the biggest help for mothers, who often blame themselves for contributing to their child’s genetic condition and for being an imperfect parent.
The research may touch on that issue indirectly, Peters observed. Judging remarks hurt the most because parents, particularly mothers, can internalize them as true, she said. Forgiving an offender might help challenge that tendency.
“If forgiving others is associated with recognizing what they said was not accurate and reintegrating that person into the parents’ support network if appropriate, I could see how it would contribute to parental well-being,” Peters said.
Forgiveness can also be part of a general mindset that leaves behind defensiveness or denial about a child’s limitations.
“I have found that the most peace comes when there is acceptance around who the child is today, no matter who they might become and the life they might lead,” she said. “Often that acceptance comes with forgiving others’ comments and opinions.”
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