Faithful Fathering in Trying Times: Religious Beliefs and Practices of Latter-Day Saint Fathers of Children with Special Needs

Abstract

This paper presents the findings from an exploration of religious beliefs collected from narrative accounts from 16 Latter-day Saint (LDS or Mormon) fathers of children with special needs. Six themes were created to organize the narratives as a result of coding. The first three are not explicitly religious in nature: (1) choosing to care, (2) dealing with today's challenges, and (3) building love through play. The second three themes were explicitly religious: (4) having faith in God's purposes, (5) giving priesthood blessings, and (6) accepting help from the church. These themes are connected to the literature on special-needs children and are related to the conceptual ethic of generative fathering (Dollahite, Hawkins, & Brotherson, 1997).

Increased Congregational Support for Parents of Children with Cystic Fibrosis

“…The increased odds that parents of children with CF would experience higher levels of thinking of how their life was part of a larger life force/spirit, which is a benevolent religious reappraisal, is consistent with how parents in other studies have positively reframed their experience of parenting a child with medical issues (Dollahite, Marks, & Olson, 1997; Grossoehme, et al, 2011). The decreased odds that parents of children with CF would report their experience as collaborative religious coping (Working together with God) and increased odds of using self-directed religious coping (Trying to deal with this without God’s help) is not surprising given the level of time and skill required to prepare for, administer or supervise, and clean up from, the daily treatment routines.…”

“…To the extent that receiving emotional support from members is correlated with receiving spiritual support from them also, it could be helpful to equip members to talk about illness and disease in religious or spiritual language. Parents of children with chronic conditions have been shown to reframe their experience in religious terms (Dollahite, et al, 1997; Grossoehme, et al, 2011). Therefore, facilitating the ability of adults to provide spiritual support may enable increased ability or likelihood of providing emotional support.…”

Traumatic Stress and Long-Term Recovery

“…Several qualitative researchers have found that reports of silver linings frequently surface in connection with challenges and temporal and/or existential crises including immigration, loss of employment, the death of a loved one, and parenting a child with special needs (Dollahite, Marks, & Olson, 1998;Marks, Swanson, Nesteruk, & Hopkins-Williams, 2006;Nesteruk, Marks, & Garrison, 2009). In addition to qualitative research, a meta-analytic review of 87 cross-sectional studies between 1985 and 2005 revealed the following about posttraumatic reports of silver linings-also referred to in the literature as "benefit finding," "posttraumatic growth," or "stress-related growth": a.…”

Use of the Daily Phone Diary to Study Religiosity and Mood: Convergent Validity

“…The stress-buffering effects of religion and spirituality has been proposed as one of several potential mechanisms by which these behaviors may affect health outcomes (Oman & Thoresen, 2005). Parents of children with CF and other chronic diseases use religion and spirituality to cope with their experiences (Dollahite, Marks, & Olson, 1998; Grossoehme, Ragsdale, Wooldridge, Cotton, & Seid, 2010). The use of religious and or spiritual beliefs or practices to decrease stress may also contribute to improved mood states.…”