There is no single piece of advice for the best and most succesful upbringing and guidance of childs' behaviour. This is especially true for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (later reffered to as children with ADHD), who need individual approach and handling, steady routine and consistency, which means a joint effort from both parents and other family members is key for maintaining a balance in the family, good relationships and positive atmosphere. Experts believe that the methods parents are using for raising their child with ADHD and their discipline approaches are not causing inappropriate and undesirable behavior of children with ADHD. However, they certainly represent an important outside factor for children with ADHD for them to be even more problematic or to be able to overcome their problems. Therefore, the main goal of this master's thesis is to explore the field of disciplining children with ADHD, aged 6 to 14 years, from their parents' perspective. The aim was also to determine which discipline methods (punitive or non-punitive) Slovenian parents of children with ADHD use the most, as well as to explore their viewpoints about discipline. Furthermore, the purpose of this masters' thesis was also to discover possible changes regarding discipline approaches that appeared during COVID-19 pandemic.
The data were obtained using an online survey questionnaire and a descriptive and casual non-experimental method and a quantitative research approach was used in this research. 98 parents of children with ADHD, aged 6 to 14 years, responded to the questionnaire. We also researched the influence of child's gender, age and educational period on the parental frequency of using disciplinary methods, viewpoint (dis)agreement, effectiveness of already implemented disciplinary methods and seeking additional help and suppor during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Research results have shown that parents used non-punitive discipline methods to a significatlly bigger extent before the COVID-19 pandemic started, wherein preventative discipline methods (induction, conversation with children, explanation of behaviour, providing support and feeling of safety, setting an example) were used the most. Regarding punitive disciplinary methods, parents most often demanded that the child apologizes to the person he or she hurt or they took away his privileges. Physical and verbal punishment was rarely used. The results have also shown that there are statistically significant differences in the frequency of using disciplinary methods regarding to childs' gender, which means that parents used non-punitive disciplinary methods more regularly with boys with ADHD than they did with girls. Furthermore, children with ADHD were disciplined by their parents the most when they were agressive towards others or were destroying property, when they disobeyed or when they weren't sticking to the agreements between them and their parents. In researching the effectivness of disciplinary methods used by parents before the COVID-19 pandemic, we found that parents rated their methods as generally effective. Parents said that talking to children, providing them support, setting an example and giving positive reinforcement were most effective disciplinary methods, whereas verbal punishment was seen as the least effective disciplinary method. As effective preventative interventions to prevent inappropriate behavior, parents highlighted induction techniques, pre-arranged agreements and rewarding children, as well as predicting situations and using a variety of relaxation techinques. Regarding viewpoints on discipline techniques we found that parents' attitude toward punitive techniques was more negative, while in the field of non-punitive methods parents considered that inductive techniques and praises were among the more effective disciplinary methods. We also found significant correlation between parents' viewpoints to punitive discipline and using punitive techniques, while this kind of correlation didn't exist between viewpoints to non-punitive discipline and using non-punitive techniques. Results have also shown that less than 30 % of all parents changed ther discipline approach and that about the same proportion of parents sought help and suppor outside their family during COVID-19 pandemic. We also found significant co-dependence between reaching out for additional help during pandemic and the child's gender, which means that the parents of boys with ADHD were more likely to reach out for help and support than the parents of girls with ADHD.
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