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- Title
"Will You Still Feel Beautiful When You Find Out You Are Different?": Parents' Experiences, Reflections, and Appearance-Focused Conversations About Their Child's Visible Difference.
- Authors
Feragen, Kristin J. Billaud; Myhre, Anita; Stock, Nicola Marie
- Abstract
To investigate parents' reflections and experiences of having a child born with an appearance-altering condition, interviews with 33 parents of children born with rare craniofacial conditions were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. Three themes emerged: "Managing emotions: A dynamic process," "Through another lens: External reminders of difference," and "Awareness of difference: Approaching the child." Findings suggest that although parents learned to accept and love their child's visible difference, external factors such as appearance-altering surgery and other people's reactions activated difficult emotions in parents. Parents struggled to decipher whether and when to raise appearance-related issues with their child, and how this could be done without distressing the child. Anticipatory guidance that facilitates positive appearance-focused conversations both within and outside the home seems to be needed. Parenting skills could also be strengthened by preparing parents for social reactions to the child's visible difference, and their child's changed appearance following surgery.
- Subjects
PARENT attitudes; PERSONAL beauty; HEALTH care reminder systems; PARENTS of children with disabilities; CRANIOFACIAL abnormalities; CONVERSATION; RESEARCH methodology; INTERVIEWING; COGNITION; FEAR; HEALTH counseling; QUALITATIVE research; PSYCHOSOCIAL factors; HEALTH care teams; PHOTOGRAPHY; RESEARCH funding; THEMATIC analysis; EMOTIONS; LOVE; PARENT-child relationships; SOCIAL attitudes; DATA analysis software; REFLECTION (Philosophy); BODY image; PSYCHOLOGICAL stress
- Publication
Qualitative Health Research, 2022, Vol 32, Issue 1, p3
- ISSN
1049-7323
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1177/10497323211039205