Parenting stress in raising autistic children.
Moms buckle when chores feel unfair; dads buckle under total load—check both views in caregiver support.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked moms and dads of school-age kids with autism about parenting load.
They wanted to know whose happiness drops when the load feels big.
They split the load two ways: total chores (absolute) and chores versus partner (relative).
What they found
Dads felt worse when the total chore pile grew.
Moms felt worse only when they did more than their partner.
The numbers showed gender still ruled how parents judged fairness.
How this fits with other research
John et al. (2026) later saw the same mom-dad split in preschool parents.
Koegel et al. (1992) then showed this mom stress pattern holds in every culture.
Falk et al. (2014) flipped the lens: they say parent thoughts and money support predict stress better than child traits, updating the burden idea.
Northup et al. (1991) and Nemati et al. (2024) added the fix: hardiness and self-compassion shield moms from the very stress A et al. first mapped.
Why it matters
When you meet parents, ask moms, "Does the work feel even?" Ask dads, "How full is your plate?" Tailor support: share task lists with dads, negotiate fairness with moms. Add self-compassion training for extra relief.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
A review of the literature documents the absence of research on the parents of autistic children as copers in a chronic stressful life situation. The 46 parents of 23 autistic children (ages 7-14) were given a series of self-report measures: Overall parenting difficulty associated with raising their autistic child, number of parenting tasks performed primarily by each parent, division of overall parenting burden between father and mother, fairness of and satisfaction with this division, and personal life satisfaction. Findings were consistent with a cognitive appraisal orientation to the stressor-stress reaction relationship. The best predictor of life satisfaction for fathers was the absolute parenting burden they were assuming, and for mothers it was the relative burden. The latter finding was attributed to the different parenting roles of men and women in society.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 1988 · doi:10.1007/BF02212196