‘Shutting the world out’: an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis exploring the paternal experience of parenting a young adult with a developmental disability

Background: An in-depth exploration of the experience of midlife fathers of developmentally disabled young adults (aged 19-32 years) was motivated by a dearth of research in this area (McKnight, 2015). Method: Five fathers participated in semi-structured interviews which were subjected to interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith, Flowers and Larkin, 2009). Results: The final thematic structure comprises four inter-related themes. They demonstrate a high degree of concern for children’s well-being; the joy adult children confer on their father’s lives as well as the difficulties men experience in response to the limited opportunities available to their offspring. Importantly findings also illustrate the way in which men struggle to contend with painful emotion