Parenting children with down syndrome: An analysis of parenting styles, parenting dimensions, and parental stress

Background: Effective parenting is vital for a child's development. Although much work has been conducted on parenting typically developing children, little work has examined parenting children with Down syndrome. Aims: The purpose of the current study was to compare the parenting styles and dimensions in mothers of children with DS and mothers of TD children. Methods and procedures: Thirty-five mothers of children with DS and 47 mothers of TD children completed questionnaires about parenting, parental stress, child behavior problems, and child executive function. Outcomes and results: We found that mothers of children with DS use an authoritative parenting style less and a permissive parenting style more than mothers of TD children. Additionally, we found that mothers of children with DS use reasoning/induction and verbal hostility less and ignoring misbehavior more than mothers of TD children. All of these differences, except for those of reasoning/induction, were at least partially accounted for by the higher levels of parental stress in the DS group. Conclusions and implications: Parenting interventions should be focused on reducing parental stress and training mothers to parent under stress in an effort to improve parenting techniques, which would, in theory, improve long-term child outcomes for children with DS.