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LGBTParents.docxRunning Head: COACHMAN 1
LGBTQ PARENTING 2
Factors of LGBTQ Parenting Success
By Ivory D Coachman
Student E. Name
Instructed by James C. Lhotak, Jr., Ph. D.
National University
October 21, 2018
Abstract
This paper examined the relation between LGBTQ Parenting and the factors of the success and it has been found that the parental reaction and support has an important role toward parenting success there are certain other aspects such as increased child vulnerability, secretive behavior and social stability of the LGBTQ community that have influence on parenting success. The paper has the contributions in term of describing the factors in describing the role of parenting is important as support from parents helps the LGBTQ community to live with content, increased child vulnerability is due to lack of parental support and LGBTQ families show secretive behaviors due to society’s discriminating attitude toward LGBTQ communities, parental moreover social support helps the social stability of the LGBTQ community. The paper is important as it has identified the impact of parental support toward LGBTQ community, increased child’s vulnerability due to societal gender non conformity results in depression in the LGBTQ community. Paper has suggested that the secretive behavior is due to societal discriminatory attitude and support from friends and family result in the social stability of the LGBTQ community in terms of relationships.
Factors of LGBTQ Parenting Success
The current paper has been written to investigate the factors that are involved with the LGBTQ Parental success. The paper has examined the relationship of the factors with the parental success of the LGBTQ community. This paper was intended to address the issues that LGBTQ community face from the societal and social stability in cultural and religious aspects hence the parental also do not support their children and adopt secretive behaviors. The hypothesis of the paper is LGBTQ parenting success is dependent on the parental reaction and support, and social support. Secondly, the parents of LGBTQ community adapt secretive behaviors towards sex identity of their children. Thirdly the positive attitude of parental support toward LGBTQ community decreases the vulnerability and enhances the resilience of the LGBTQ community. Brief history and literature review have highlighted the significance and research evidence of the issue. The solution of the problem has been presented in the conclusion.
History of the Problem
LGBTQ issues have been in news since long but in 2015 legal support has been given to the LGBTQ community for same sex marriages, discrimination has been a serious concern but the families and cultural discrimination still exist as the families do not openly support the LGBTQ marriages. LGBTQ community is facing several issue in the society that are needed to be explored in order to see the reason and what are contributing factors. These factors are parental support and reaction, increased child vulnerability, secretive behavior and social stability. LGBTQ community needs to be viewed in the light of these factors to draw out the factors that are problematic and how the societal environment can be made important and beneficial for the better social support of such communities. The parental support towards disclosing the sexual orientation of their children results in the form of improved and low-risk health behavior as compared to those LGBTQ males and females who did not get support from their parents have shown riskier health-related behaviors. There are social impacts and concerns of the LGBTQ parenting, as society has discriminating attitude towards the LGBTQ community. The LGBTQ community is diverse and exists in the high range but they face stigmas and discrimination hence secretive behaviors have been seen as a result. North America is striving for making such policies that respect the social and emotional value of LGBTQ community in order to remove the health care barriers and provide them the standard healthcare facilities without a barrier in order to promote the overall health care system of the society.
Literature Review
Parental Reaction and Parental Support
Ruthman (2012) has reported that only two third of the LGBTQ participant has received emotional or social support from the parents. He said that parental emotional and social support help students deal with the behavioral issue and helps them to involve in better health safety behaviors. Researcher has argued that positive relationship between parental rejection and sexual orientation of the children (Ruthman, 2012). Depression has been seen among the LGBTQ community moreover the individuals are reported to be engaged in the drug abuse behaviors. The researchers has stressed out that the support of the parents can be helpful for the LGBTQ males and females for not being engaged in negative behaviors such as depression and drug use.
Family Support
Rose (2016) has argued that family support is needed for the LGBTQ community, research has been conducted to collect the information from the LGBTQ males and females to seek their expectations regarding support from parents although initial responses of the parents are not positive as the situation is not acceptable for parents. The researcher has concluded that the parents are not supportive towards LGBTQ children due to religious obligations that have been set. The research has highlighted the fact the children want to seek explicit support from the parents hence their expectations are high towards parental support (Rose, 2016).
Increased Child vulnerability
Biddulph (2008) has stressed upon the sensitive issue of equality in the school environment as the children are more vulnerable on the basis of sexual orientation. The author has highlighted that schools have an important role to support vulnerable children. Moreover the author has discussed the problems and difficulties that children face at school when they are in LGBTQ category they are often treated on the basis of discrimination as a resulted many problems arise such as low self-esteem, absenteeism, underachievement and in certain cases the issue can result in the form of suicide when children are more affected due to depression (Biddulph, 2008). All the above factor are seriously concerning related to the child mental health. The researcher has suggested the school's policies are needed to be revised in order to deal with the issue. Author has endorsed that the schools can play their part in helping and supporting the children who are vulnerable and they are in need of support. Effective and joint support can be helpful and beneficial for children who are identified as Lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
Vulnerability and Resilience
Bockting (2016) has highlighted the need for mental health professional to address the issue regarding gender nonconformity of the LGBTQ children who are facing the vulnerability in the society. Policymaker and government can get help and guideline support from the research-based facts. The children get a mental health stigma from the mental health professional according to the DSM hence they face a challenging situation in the society that is quite difficult and stress provoking for such vulnerable LGBTQ children (Bockting, 2016).
Secretive behaviors
Lee & Kanji (2017) has highlighted the concern of LGBTQ community regarding their existence their body integrity, emotional support, freedom to express, acceptance toward their unique identity, and power (Lee & Kanji, 2017). The LGBT community need the support of the society in order to get integrity and support. Researchers have addressed the importance of understanding the difference between sex and gender, and there is a need that society has a responsibility to change the discriminating attitude and understand the unique integrity of the LGBTQ community. Watson (2014) has built up the argument on the attitudes and behaviors related to the families of GLBT’s who often view the GLBT’s as stigma and the community seek unacceptance form the society. The researcher has highlighted the issues and problems faced by the families of such community that provokes an attitude of silence and silence on the perspective of such issue. The researchers have highlighted the social and societal issues that have been faced by the society. Society’s perception toward GLBT community is not based on any single aspects there are certain issues regarding religious boundaries, cultural and societal expectations, and geographical expectations of the society regarding the concept of sex and gender (Watson, 2014).
Social Stability
Rodrigues, Huic & Lopes (2018) have discussed the relationships of the Lesbian and gays as they strive to make a long run and durable relationship in order to get adjusted and get stability in the society. The relationships that are strong and stable has the durability and stability in term of the social and psychological well-being of such individuals. The research has resulted in an interesting factor that the durability of such a relationship is better when parents and friends are supportive of such couples resulting in strengthening of the situation (Rodrigues, Huic & Lopes, 2018). Stanton, Rozas, & Acensio (2018) employed the research to describe the citizenship is another social factor for the LGBTQ individuals in society as they have to reveal their current identity and hence they face discrimination. The author has suggested that devising such policies that do not need information regarding LGBTQ would lower the difficulties and stigmatization in the community. The author has suggested that by applying the realism theory, it has been concluded that social and political factors are too influential in term of policies and practices that such societies are facing discrimination (Stanton, Rozas, & Acensio, 2018). People who are born American are more under pressure rather than those who have migrated to the US as they are considered as the variable to control the demographics. The change can be brought by stabilizing and devising the citizenship policies (Stanton, Rozas, & Acensio, 2018).
Discussion
Parental Reaction and Parental Support
This research has highlighted the importance of parental reaction toward exposing the status of being LGBTQ and the parental support. The parental reaction and support is important towards LGBTQ community when they know about their children what their reactions are and what type of support LGBTQ community is receiving from their parents and social circle as societal and religious obligations hinders parents to support their LGBTQ children. The concern along with a future role of society to aware the parents and children in order to resolve the issues and put collective efforts toward a healthy living.
Family Support
Family support is important as it is evident form the research evidence that LGBTQ community seek support from families as the parental support lower the pressure on LGBTQ community.
Increased Child Vulnerability
Second important domain that have been discussed is that the increased child vulnerability of LGBTQ community as being victim of the societies discrimination, LGBTQ community is under the pressure of non-conformity of gender the research evidence has suggested the importance of the domain and current research suggests it is an important factor that needs consideration form psychologists and other mental health professionals to neutralize the community and society approach towards LGBTQ community, also mental health professionals can provide the counseling to the LGBTQ community.
Vulnerability and resilience
LGBTQ community is more vulnerable to the stress that is multi-dimensional for the LGBTQ community from parents and family.
Secretive behaviors
Third aspect depends on the secretive behaviors that LGBTQ community has adopted towards societies’ attitudes in the form being silent or hiding their identities. Delay in acceptance and providing the care and integrity to the LGBTQ community have been a reason of delay in acceptance and rights of LGBTQ’s in the society. This concern should be addressed on an urgent basis in order to improve the health care facilities for the community. Moreover, Parental success of LGBT community is based on the secretive behaviors as the parental involvement openly helped the LGBTQ community with more comfort rather than hiding the identity. It is an issue regarding cultural sensitive so the professionals of the community have the role to play their part in the solution of the problem so that secret behavior and trend are diminished to ensure health facility for all.
Social Stability
Research has discussed the dimensions that are helpful in the social stability of the LGBTQ community as relationships are more stable when LGBTQ community gets supports from parents and friends. All the factors that have influence on the LGBTQ parenting success in the context of existing literature. The support that is offered by the friends is a mediating role among the community of such individuals gays and lesbians. The social expression of the current status of the LGBTQ community are very important in the societies that are based on the opposing the LGBTQ practices. Policy-making and governmental level involvement is necessary to provide security regarding social status can be helpful in this regard. Outness of the identity is a healthy practices when society and societal norms have the acceptance toward LGBTQ status.
Conclusion
LGBTQ community and parental concerns, increased child vulnerability, secretive behavior and social stability has been discussed. LGBTQ community needs parental support and community support for healthy and long run relationship, communities’ professionals support and revised policies can ensure the health and safety issue of the LGBTQ community, secretive behaviors are a result of society’s attitude towards LGBTQ Community and their families hence they try to hide their identity. Mental health professionals have important role to positive and actively participate to build a healthy environment of the society for LGBTQ children. Moreover the role of counselors is to play at the community level in order to resolve the issues that families are going through by sitting and speaking on the issue. Families have an attitude of acceptance and resistance according to research findings but they are trying to adjust with the encountered situation in the form of coping with resilience and empowerment.
Work Cited
Biddulph, M. (2008). Sexualities Equality in Schools: Why Every Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender (LGBT) Child Matters. Pastoral Care in education. 24 (2). 15-21.
Bockting, W. O. (2016). Vulnerability and Resilience Among Gender-Nonconforming Children and Adolescents: Mental Health Professionals Have a Key Role to Play. Journal of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 55(6). 441-443.
Lee, A. Kanji, Z. (2017). Queering the health care system: Experiences of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community. Can J Dent Hyg, 51(2): 80-89.
Rodrigues, D. L. Huic, A. & Lopes, D. (2018). Relationship commitment of Portuguese lesbian and gay individuals. Examining the role of cohabitation and perceived social support. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
Roe, S. (2016). “Family Support Would Have Been Like Amazing”
LGBTQ Youth Experiences with Parental and Family Support. “The family Journal”. 25(1). 55-62.
Ruthman, E. F. (2012). Parents’ Supportive Reactions to Sexual Orientation Disclosure Associated With Better Health: Results From a Population-Based Survey of LGB Adults in Massachusetts. J Homosex. 59(2): 186–200.
Stanton, M. C. Rozas, L, W. Acensio, M. (2018). Citizenship Status Matters: A Social Factor Influencing Outness among a Diverse National Sample of LGBT Individuals. The British Journal of Social Work.
Watson, J. B. (2014). Bisexuality and Family: Narratives of Silence, Solace, and Strength. Journal of GLBT Families Studies. 10 (1). 101-123.
