Parenting Among Mothers With Bipolar Disorder: Children's Perspectives

How Do Children Make Sense of their Parent’s Mental Health Difficulties: A Meta-Synthesis

“…Maybery et al ( 2005 ) stated that children described needing to “be quiet when their parent was unwell” (p. 6). Other attempts not to burden or upset the parent included doing housework, caring for siblings, avoiding provocation, not bringing friends home, getting out of the house or generally staying away from the parent (Mordoch and Hall 2008 ; Mordoch 2010 ; Venkataraman 2011 ; Trondsen 2012 ; Griffiths et al 2012 ). It was also found that children hide their worries from their parents and reassure them that they were not affected by their parent’s distress (Van Parys and Rober 2013 ).…”

“…I just help out really wherever it needs…if she’s ill I’ll do the whole house” (Griffiths et al 2012 , p. 74). A perception that the parent needs to be taken care of and comforted was depicted in Venkataraman ( 2011 ), “Parents need help and children can talk to them, try and understand what is wrong: Sometimes you have to take care of your parent” (p. 23). Some of the studies depicted how children recognised a change to their role in the family, particularly parentification, “Sometimes it’s more like I’m the one who is the parent, and he is the child.…”

“…It…just feels like I have lot of responsibilities sometimes…sometimes it is just like wow! (Venkataraman 2011 , p. 101).…”

“…Cogan et al ( 2005 ) suggested that COPE-MHD were less likely to express stigmatising opinions of MHD generally, due to personal experience of living with someone experiencing MHD. Some actually described positive attitudes towards mental health as a consequence of living with their parent’s MHD, “I am not concerned because it makes me who I am and it makes me a unique kind of person” (Venkataraman 2011 , p. 103). However, it appeared from some of the comments that children were actively attempting to develop alternative, positive narratives about their parent and the meaning they attribute to the impact of the parent’s MHD.…”

“…South of Sweden Mordoch and Hall ( 2008 ) Explore how children manage their experiences of living with a parent with a mental illness Interviews, participant observation and drawings. Constant comparative grounded theory 22 children between 6–16 years living part of full-time with a parent with depression, schizophrenia or bipolar diagnoses Midwestern Canadian city Mordoch ( 2010 ) Explore how children understand mental illness and what they want to tell other children living with parental mental illness secondary grounded theory analysis of data from Mordoch and Hall ( 2008 ), focussed on investigation of a component of the ‘Monitoring’ category from the primary analysis 22 children between 6–16 years living part of full-time with a parent with depression, schizophrenia or bipolar diagnoses Midwestern Canadian city Venkataraman ( 2011 ) Explore children’s perspectives on the parenting of mothers with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder Initial semi-structured interview and follow-up interview. Constant comparative grounded theory 4 children between 10–15 years with mothers that had a diagnosis of bipolar disorder Community mental health centres and support groups.…”