Intellectual disability: an opportunity of family growth

Parenting is a task that carries a high level of complexity due to the fact that it needs of actions in different levels and in a simultaneous way, which aims to ensure and promote the ideal development of children. That is why those who decide to carry out the parental role assumed a great responsibility, as should have strategies, resources and skills enabling them to function as parents, denominating this set of issues: parental competence. In the case of having a member with intellectual disabilities (ID) in the family, we can assume that this may intervene in aspects of its dynamics, to what it is necessary to ask if that intervention is necessarily negative or if is possible to speak about positive changes that contribute to a redefinition and constructive restructuring of the family. The aim of this study is to determine which aspects of parenting competence may be favored in families with a child with ID, not from the presence of disability itself, but from the strategies and actions undertaken by parents in this situation.