Transforming Parental Suffering: The Role of Being a Good Parent (328)

Abstract

Objectives 1. Define the components of a research-based definition of being a ‘‘good’’ parent. 2. Describe strategies for eliciting parental perspectives on being a ‘‘good’’ parent. 3. Define ways clinicians can support parents to achieve their definition of being a’’good’’ parent. Parents confronted with the suffering of their children as a result of life-threatening illness and injury struggle to make decisions for their child that honors their child’s humanness and quality of life and preserves parental integrity. Clinicians similarly struggle with reconciling often disparate understandings of goals and treatment options with parental requests for continuation or limitations of treatment modalities. Without a framework for exploring these perspectives conflict occurs relationships begin to fracture and distress ensues. When clinicians can understand the ways that parents define their role as a ‘‘good parent,’’ new opportunities for understanding communication and collaboration arise. This researchebased, clinically supported interactive workshop will present the findings from qualitative interviews from parents with children born with life-threatening conditions in the NICU and parents who have made end-of-life decisions for children with cancer. A multi-component definition of ‘‘good parent’’ from the perspective of parents and parental suggestions about the roles that clinicians can play in helping them to achieve their definition of being a ‘‘good parent’’ for their seriously ill or dying child will be presented. These findings will be augmented with video clips of parents sharing their views on being a good parent. Workshop participants will engage in thematic analysis of the content of the videos and reflection on cases that involve the interplay between conceptions of what it means to be a ‘‘good’’ parent and a ‘‘good’’ clinician in the care of seriously ill or dying children. Participants will gain (1) a working grasp of the concept of being a good parent to a seriously ill or dying child, (2) clarity on how to clinically elicit the parental perspective on being a good parent of a child, and (3) a perspective on how to apply the concept of good parent to their own clinical practice.