Child Behavioural Problems among Mentally Challenged Children and Parenting Stress

The influence of behaviour of mentally challenged children on parenting stress was studied on 71 parents residing in Hubli Dharwad twin city ofDharwad district, Karnataka. Correlation research design was employed to know the relationship between child behavioural problems and parenting stress. Parenting stress index- Short form (PSI-SF) developed by Abidin (1995) andAchenbach's Child behaviour Check List (2001) was administered to the parents. Chi Square and One way ANOVA was computed. It was found that there was significant association between parenting stress and child's externalizing and internalizing behaviour problems. Parents whose children were in clinical range of internalizing problems had the highest mean score on parenting stress (104.84) which was followed by parents whose children were in borderline of internalizing problem (92.14) and the least score(89.25) was among parents whose children were normal range in internalizing problem. Regarding externalizing problems, parents whose children were in the range of normal to borderline level were similar on parenting stress (96.12 & 96.81) and the highest mean score was found among the parents who were in clinically significant range (113.89). However no significant association was found between parenting stress and child behaviour. Parents whose children were in clinical range of internalizing and externalizing behaviour problems had significantly higher parenting stress compared to parents whose children were in normal and borderline level.