From: Adult children of parents with mental illness: parenting journeys
Sub-themes | Categories | Main coding from transcripts |
---|---|---|
Adult children living with parenting worries | Worries about children’s emotional health | Worries about children developing mental illness. Hyper-vigilante to child’s emotional health. Finding the children’s emotions difficult to understand. |
Parenting challenges | Finding communications with child challenging. Struggling to develop emotional connectivity with child. | |
Parenting self-doubts | Self-doubt and questioning parenting – lacking confidence. Difficulties ensuring consistency with children. Have to consciously think about parenting more than others. | |
Lacking an internal parenting framework and support | Lacking a parenting framework and role model. Lacking guidance in parenting role. | |
Oppositional parenting | Fears of making the same mistakes as own parents. Using an opposite approach to parenting. | |
Adult children seeking connectivity with their children and others | Wanting better and the best for the children | Want success, happiness, community role for children. Wanting something different for children than own (adult children’s) experiences. Wanting to be the best parent possible. |
Wanting love and connectivity with children | Importance of being with family and children. Being involved with children’s daily lives and enjoying family time. Want to give children so much love – being loving, respectful, open and developing trust. | |
Wanting to protect or be protected by children | Want to protect children. Not wanting children to go through the same as adult children. | |
Wanting to provide space for children to grow | Allow children to follow their desires – provide opportunities for them. Independence is key. Actively developing resilience in children. |