Navajo children and families living with fetal alcohol syndrome/fetal alcohol effects

Abstract

The aim of the study was to develop a culturally sensitive Grounded Theory of Navajo parenting for families who are living with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)/Fetal Alcohol Effects (FAE). The research question was: What are the social and cultural factors and processes that Navajo families use to mange care for a child with FAS/FAE? The philosophical perspectives that guided the study were: the Navajo philosophy, or view of life; resilience (middle range theory); the Family Stress Theory; and the Resiliency Mode of Family Stress, Adjustment, and Adaptation. Resilience was used as the over arching conceptual perspective for the study. A Grounded Theory of Navajo Parenting emerged from the data. Key categories to support the emerging theory were identified. The core category was Versatility through Transcendence. The supporting categories were: Strategies for Managing Challenges; Transcendence in Parenting; Intergenerational Alcohol Abuse, Violence and Suffering; and Knowledge/Acquisition of Needs. The families described their stories of transcendence through substance abuse, suffering, and violence to be able to parent their children who were living with the primary and secondary challenges of prenatal alcohol exposures. Further research is needed to test and expand this emerging theory of Navajo parenting of children with FAS/FAE. The challenges that were related to FAS/FAE were more easily managed with patterns of resilience within the families. Factors that influenced family's abilities to parent will be disseminated to assist other families who are managing the problems associated with FAS/FAE.