Emerging resilience: stress and coping strategies in Chinese families living with children with disabilities

Abstract

China is a country with a strong tradition of family-centered care, and family members are the main caregivers for children with disabilities. This article aims to explore how they overcome difficulties when faced with challenges and to examine the emergence of family resilience. This study adopted a qualitative research method, and two rounds of in-depth interviews were conducted with 15 families. The findings combined family resilience theory and inductive themes from empirical experiences. As a result of the stigma associated with disability, such families may feel ashamed and lose their ‘face’. Their family belief system includes the destiny view and living in the moment, which allows them to make sense of their situation and maintain a positive outlook. Conclusions revealed how parents perceive their situation and construct their family’s organizational and communication patterns to cope with challenges.

Points of interest

• In China, families of children with disabilities face a wide range of pressures, including stigma associated with disabilities, a heavy economic burden and tense family relationships.

• Parents and other family members are the primary caregivers of children with disabilities, with the government playing only a supporting role.

• Family belief system involving living in the moment helps these families to make meaning of their situation and maintain a positive outlook.

• Families of children with disabilities in China have developed their own culturally-based family organization and communication style to develop resilience.

• The research recommended that a family-centered social support system should be developed to help these families foster resilience.

Keywords:

• Chinese families
• children with disabilities
• destiny view
• family resilience

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Fundamental Research Funds of Shandong University; Major Research Projects of the Ministry of Education in Philosophy and Social Sciences (21JZD014); Major Research Projects of the National Social Science Foundation of China (17ZDA116).