Conditional Love: Parents' Attitudes Toward Handicapped Children Book PDF, ePub eBook

Join our eBook service for unlimited books & audiobooks. Get a free 7 day subscription! ↓↓↓↓↓


Book Descriptions:

Questioning the myth of unconditional love between parents and children, this study examines the strength of the parental bond when children are born with physical defects. The author, a social scientist, studied parents' behavior toward 1,450 children born with defects in three hospitals in Israel, and then conducted follow-up studies over a period of six years with 200 families in their homes. One of the major recurring patterns of parental behavior was a massive tendency toward rejection of deformed children. Rejection was manifested by parents' wishes for drastic separation from their children through abandonment, institutionalization, or giving up for adoption. If brought home, the children were isolated and hidden from view. Weiss found that half of the newborns with physically observable defects were abandoned by their parents in the hospital. Even when the parents were assured by doctors that their children would develop intellectually or would not require special care, the tendency to abandon remained strong. Normal children who suffered physical deformity due to burns or other accidents were similarly rejected by their parents. This study will take a major place in the literature on human behavior because through exhaustive and long-term observation of actual behavior in thousands of individual situations, it exposes the extreme importance of physical appearance in interpersonal relations.

The author describes how the deformity causes confusion in the parents' cognitive system, labelling the child with a name such as monster or devil or creature, or another non-human category. Parents' reactions to their children's body image are discussed and the concept of body boundaries is analyzed. Children connected to medical apparatus or sickly children are the cause of much parental rejection. Also, territorial restrictions are placed on the deformed child in the home. These range from closeting or imprisoning in unfurnished surroundings separate from the family to demotion to servant status within the family. This study refutes most assumptions in the literature and shows that forming bonds with one's biological child is not necessarily spontaneous, automatic, or natural, and that every child undergoes a process of adoption or rejection based on external appearance and whether or not that appearance matches the parents' image of a person. Hospital personnel, social workers, sociologists and anthropologists will be profoundly influenced by this work, as will be all others who read it.

Conditional Love: Parents' Attitudes Toward Handicapped Children by Meira Weiss

From reader reviews:

Thomas Fleischmann:

Why don't make it to be your habit? Right now, try to ready your time to do the important take action, like looking for your favorite reserve and reading a guide. Beside you can solve your problem; you can add your knowledge by the reserve entitled Conditional Love: Parents' Attitudes Toward Handicapped Children. Try to make book Conditional Love: Parents' Attitudes Toward Handicapped Children as your good friend. It means that it can for being your friend when you really feel alone and beside that of course make you smarter than ever. Yeah, it is very fortuned for you. The book makes you a lot more confidence because you can know everything by the book. So , let me make new experience as well as knowledge with this book.

Deborah Hagan:

In this 21st century, people become competitive in every single way. By being competitive right now, people have do something to make these survives, being in the middle of the crowded place and notice simply by surrounding. One thing that sometimes many people have underestimated the item for a while is reading. Yeah, by reading a guide your ability to survive raise then having chance to endure than other is high. In your case who want to start reading a book, we give you this particular Conditional Love: Parents' Attitudes Toward Handicapped Children book as starter and daily reading guide. Why, because this book is greater than just a book.

Eldon Hall:

Now a day individuals who Living in the era everywhere everything reachable by talk with the internet and the resources within it can be true or not require people to be aware of each info they get. How people have to be smart in having any information nowadays? Of course the reply is reading a book. Reading through a book can help persons out of this uncertainty Information specially this Conditional Love: Parents' Attitudes Toward Handicapped Children book since this book offers you rich info and knowledge. Of course the data in this book hundred per cent guarantees there is no doubt in it as you know.

Hoyt Moore:

Does one one of the book lovers? If so, do you ever feeling doubt if you are in the book store? Attempt to pick one book that you just dont know the inside because don't evaluate book by its deal with may doesn't work the following is difficult job because you are frightened that the inside maybe not since fantastic as in the outside appear likes. Maybe you answer could be Conditional Love: Parents' Attitudes Toward Handicapped Children why because the wonderful cover that make you consider in regards to the content will not disappoint anyone. The inside or content will be fantastic as the outside as well as cover. Your reading sixth sense will directly guide you to pick up this book.