O exercício da parentalidade de crianças com Perturbação do Espectro do Autismo: um novo olhar sobre o conceito

Parenthood is one of the significant events occurring in a family’s life cycle. Through this process, families are able to recognize what has changed and how the relationships, the circumstances are different. It is a complex process of transition that requires the awareness and acquisition of new knowledge, skills, changing behavior and, sometimes, a new perspective of the definition of each one in the social context. When a different/disabled child is born, the stages of the development may also be influenced by the adaptation of the family to the disability. The birth of a different/disabled child confronts every expectation of the parents, as well as the family, living now in instability that may promote a crisis situation. With this study, we aim to acknowledge how the exercise of parenting children with Autism Spectrum Disorders is processed. Thus, we intend to know the meanings and expectations experienced by the parents during this process; Identify which critical events were highlighted during the process; Identify what changes occur during the period; Identify the conditions of the facilitator / inhibitor; To understand parents' response patterns in the practice of kinship of a different child with autism spectrum disorders and to develop a mediumrange theory that contributes to improving the quality of care provided to these families. The research fits within the qualitative paradigm, which allows the understanding of the various facets of the problematic under study, since it seeks to understand the phenomenon and its meanings, as well as the perception that the producers of speeches (Parents) have about them. The method of investigation adopted is the inductive one – Grounded Theory. We determined the accessible population through the social and demographic portrait of the Associations supporting families with children with disabilities. This study was supported by interviews with nine couples and one mother, complemented with observation, where we intend to understand how these parents live the exercise of their parenting. For the treatment of the data, we resorted to the thematic analysis of the content of the interviews’ corpus. Parenthood of a Child with ASD: a new look at the concept was the central theme that emerged from the data analysis and represents the transformation of the parents due to the care of these children and the adjustment to the parental process in the singular experience that this experience represents. The mechanisms used by the parents encompass multiple dimensions: cognitive, relational and social dimensions. At the same time, questions about operability were highlighted, drawing special attention to the involvement in care, the reorganization of habits and routines, the sharing and the reconciliation of roles. All these elements contribute to the modification of the concept of life, of beliefs, of expectations, of relationships and of everyday life. The Parenting Exercise of a Child with ASD distinguishes itself as a dynamic process, fed by the interaction within the various contexts, family, educational, health, based on a co-construction that is substantiated by successive temporalities (as succession of events) which cover the phenomenon of complexity and singularity. In conclusion we hope that this knowledge contributes to sensitizing the nurses in their clinical decisions and response to the parents.