An-Najah Staff

This study sought to find out the level of stress coping management strategies of parents whose children had special needs as perceived by the parents themselves. To this end, the researcher used the descriptive method. To collect data, she developed a 64-item questionnaire which covered seven strategies. Before its administration, the questionnaire was tested for validity and reliability and was found to valid and reliable. The population of the study was all parents (mothers and fathers) in Nablus Governorate. The total number was 1,217. The sample of the study consisted of 255 parents: 46 fathers and 209 mothers. They were randomly selected from the population of parents whose children had special needs and used to go to special needs centers in Nablus Governorate. After data collection and analysis, the researcher found that religiosity was the most widely used coping strategy by parents of children with special needs. Its arithmetic average was 4.14. The problem-solving strategy come second followed by social support, cognitive building, relaxation, and avoidance, fight and denial strategies. The last strategy used was sports exercise strategy. It was also found that there were no statistically significant differences between the averages of responses of the participants towards the stress coping strategies which could be attributed to the variable of sex of custodian, economic standard, marital status, sex of child, severity of the case, type of disability and place of living. There were also statistically significant differences between the average of responses of the participants to the stress coping strategies which could be attributed to the level of education variable of parent. In the light of the study findings, the researcher recommends the training of parents who have special needs children to cope with stress to practice strategies of physical exercising and relaxation given their importance in coping with stress. She also suggests giving serious interest to the design of training programs that are devoted to strategies used by parents in their treatment of their special needs children. Finally, the researcher recommends launching social and cultural educational awareness campaign on how to deal with special needs children and apply social support strategy with the family of the special needs child.