Parenting After the Death of a Spouse

Glazer, Hilda R.; Clark, Myra D.; Thomas, Rebecca P.; Haxton, Heather

doi:10.1177/1049909110366851

Cited by 23 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Such conversations can help meet the dying parent’s goals of care,[19] identify areas of parenting concern, help the surviving parent with parenting,[27] and facilitate children’s adjustment. [27, 28] Pre-death conversations that anticipate future challenges may reduce the surviving parent’s psychological distress in bereavement. This is an almost entirely neglected area of research in the EOL literature despite the elevated levels of depression and anxiety in widowed parents.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

End-of-life parental communication priorities among bereaved fathers due to cancer

Park

Deal

Yopp

et al. 2017

Patient Education and Counseling

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Objectives To elicit widowed fathers’ perspectives on which domains of parenting-related communication they consider most important for dying parents to discuss at the end of life (EOL). Methods Two hundred seventy nine fathers widowed by cancer completed a survey about their own depression and bereavement symptoms, their wife’s illness, and EOL parental communication priorities. Chi square and Fisher’s exact tests and logistic regression were used to evaluate relationships between maternal EOL characteristics and fathers’ responses to parenting-related EOL communication priorities. Results Fathers identified raising children in a manner that reflected maternal wishes, whether/how to talk with children about their mother’s death, and how the mother wanted to be remembered as the most important EOL communication domains. Fathers who reported that their dying wives were worried about the children were more likely to prioritize raising children in ways that reflect her wishes (p=0.01). Other EOL characteristics were not associated with communication domains. Conclusions Communicating with children and maintaining emotional connection with the deceased parent are important priorities for bereaved fathers who lost a spouse to cancer. Practice Implications Health care providers working with seriously ill parents may improve family outcomes by supporting communication at the EOL between co-parents.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

End-of-life parental communication priorities among bereaved fathers due to cancer

Park

Deal

Yopp

et al. 2017

Patient Education and Counseling

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“…The questions in the interview-guide were based on previous research in the area of spousal loss (e.g. Aamotsmo & Bugge, 2013;Glazer, Clark, Thomas, & Haxton, 2010;Howell, 2013;Haase & Johnston, 2012;Yopp et al, 2015), methodological literature on interviewing (Brinkman & Kvale, 2015;Deatrick, Faan, & Ledlie, 2000;Holstein & Gubrium, 2003;Schwalbe & Wolkomir, 2003), and extensive knowledge of the population (Berger, 2015;Christoffersen, 2016, Silverman, 2000. In order to tap into the experiences of the individual man, demographic questions at the beginning of the interview were followed by an open-ended question: 'What is it like being on your own after losing your partner?'…”

Section: Research Questions and Interview-guidementioning

confidence: 99%

Life Came to a Full Stop: The Experiences of Widowed Fathers

Holmgren

2019

Omega (Westport)

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This study investigated how the death of the mother affected four Danish families. In-depth interviews were undertaken with both children ( N = 7, 7–19 years) and fathers ( N = 4, average age: 46 years) within the same families. The results presented in this article focus on the experiences of the fathers. Thematic analyses as set out by Braun and Clarke resulted in three overall themes: Coping with Loss, Transitions, and Mismatch between Experienced Needs and Provided Help. The results bear witness to a group of bereaved individuals experiencing heavy demands on their time and mental resources while trying to cope with their own grief and that of their children simultaneously. This is especially the case for the three men with younger children. Implications for practice are highlighted, such as a need for focusing on the individual and not offering a one-size-fits-all approach to bereavement support.

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“…Bereaved parents are at risk for feeling overwhelmed by the time and energy required to be a sole parent (Glazer et al, 2010), thus it was necessary to include items assessing parenting stress. Widowed parents are prone to believing that no matter what they do, it will not be good enough because their children no longer have both parents (Boerner & Silverman, 2001; Glazer et al, 2010). As such, surviving parents report feeling great parenting pressure, guiding us to assess whether they are meeting their own (or others) expectations.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They are simultaneously tasked with adjusting to altered parenting roles, tending to their children’s grief reactions, and taking on child care responsibilities that were once shared with the deceased parent. Coping with these increased parental demands can be especially difficult in the context of acute bereavement (Burgess, 1995; Glazer, Clark, Thomas, & Haxton, 2010; Saldinger, Porterfield, & Cain, 2004; Yopp & Rosenstein, 2012). Thus, it is not surprising that widowed parents endorse high levels of parenting-related stress (Yopp et al, 2015) and may lack confidence in their abilities to carry out parental duties (Burgess, 1995).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Widowed parenting self-efficacy scale: A new measure

et al. 2017

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The authors developed and tested a novel measure of parenting self-efficacy specifically for recently widowed parents of dependent-age children. They tested the scale among 244 recently widowed fathers via an open-access web survey. Exploratory factor analysis identified 3 factors: perception of meeting parenting expectations (α = .88), provision of effective discipline (α = .69), and sense of parental burden (α = .69). Scores on the new scale correlated positively with Kansas Parenting Satisfaction and Psychological Adaptation Scale scores, and negatively with CES-D (depression) and TRIG (grief) scale scores. The resulting 9-item Widowed Parenting Self Efficacy Scale is a promising measure for use in research and clinical settings.

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Parenting After the Death of a Spouse

Cited by 23 publications

References 9 publications

End-of-life parental communication priorities among bereaved fathers due to cancer

End-of-life parental communication priorities among bereaved fathers due to cancer

Life Came to a Full Stop: The Experiences of Widowed Fathers

Widowed parenting self-efficacy scale: A new measure

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