Parental Coping with Developmental Disorders in Adolescents within the Ultraorthodox Jewish Community in Israel

This preliminary study compares the coping strategies used by 100 ultraorthodox Jewish parents and 100 secular Jewish parents for dealing with adolescent children with developmental disorders. The parents completed two questionnaires on the sense of stress-related personal growth and the sense of coherence. The ultraorthodox parents reported a higher sense of growth and a higher sense of coherence than the secular parents. In addition, there were associations found between demographic characteristics. Gender differences between mothers and fathers in the sense of growth and community differences between ultraorthodox fathers and secular fathers in the sense of coherence are discussed. The study highlights the uniqueness of the religious point of view in dealing with adolescent children with developmental disorders.