A study on journaling for parents to cope with autistic children / Nur Saiyidatul Hajar Zaini

Raising a child is hard but it is even harder when you cannot understand them and it can be even harder with autistic children with their unique way of perceiving the world and what they deemed as normal which is different from the rest of the society. That is why this study is conducted as an attempt to find a solution to help parents with autistic children handle the new challenge in their family and how they can understand and empathize with their child. Based on research and experience, recording the journey of learning about autism and their children in a journal was recommended as a coping mechanism for the parents and family to assist them in their personal odyssey. To determined whether this method can work for parents, interviews were conducted with carefully selected parents with autistic children of their own. Together with the research done about journaling and parents' struggles with autistic children, this paper aims to bridge the two subjects and create a solution by comparing these researches and interviews with specific respondents. The result from our primary data shows that there is a possibility that journaling works well with certain people while others may have their own way to cope and learn. But sharing your own stories in a certain group was shown to help parents a lot in learning about autism and how other parents deal with the condition. With that being said, understanding and learning about your child is deemed important in the journey of parenthood.