Raising children : single parents' parenting styles with children living with attention-deficit/hyperactive disorder

Abstract

This article reports on the perceptions of single parents on their parenting styles in raising their children living with attention-deficit/hyperactive disorder (ADHD). Purposive sampling was used to collect the sample group. The study comprised 10 female participants of white, Indian, and coloured descent with a mean age of 35.6 years. The participants were single parents of a child formally diagnosed with ADHD and living in South Africa. Qualitative data were gathered using semi-structured interviews and subsequently thematically analyzed. The study found that the single parents of children with ADHD perceived their parenting styles as unique from their parents’ traditional methods. The results also revealed shortcomings in the theoretical framework used to guide this study, especially in regard to non-traditional parenting structures. Future research could explore a proposed conceptual framework, the Pan-African Millennial Parenting conceptual framework.