The development of Emotional Intelligence and Leadership of parents of people with disabilities throughout the COVID-19 era
Within the framework of “Leadership & Emotional Intelligence” workshop of the Department of Communication, Media & Culture in Panteion University, with Mrs. Dimitra Iordanoglou as our course instructor, and Mrs. Valia Karatosidi, psychologist and PhD Candidate, we were asked to investigate the way the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the emotional intelligence and leadership skills of specific groups.
The directions we could explore were indeed various, but the choice of our topic was a much easier decision, thanks to an online Facebook group. “My Life with Giannis” (I Zoi Mou Me Ton Gianni) is a Facebook page which is managed by Mrs. Ada Stamatatou, mother of Giannis, an adult with autism spectrum disorders. Mrs. Stamatatou has turned this group into an online community in which she and other parents of children with some form of disability share their thoughts and feelings about their everyday life. After looking up this group, our team decided to investigate how COVID-19 has affected the emotional intelligence of parents of people with disabilities.
We began our research by conducting an interview with Mrs. Maria Soulakeli, Social Worker in “Margarita” Special Education Laboratory, who helped us better understand the peculiarities of the behavior and daily life of people with disabilities, but also how this was affected by the compulsory lockdown. “Our biggest fear when we heard the announcement of the first lockdown, was the fear of regression. For people with mental disabilities, routine is very important. When this happened, it meant that their routine would break and they would find it very difficult to do anything anymore.”
The discussion with Mrs. Soulakeli filled us with questions about the way parents managed to face this new reality, and that is why we decided to conduct interviews with parents of children with mental disabilities. We tried to include parents of children with different forms of mental disabilities and ages in our interviews, in order to have a more general picture on the subject. That is why we spoke with Mrs. Ifigeneia, mother of 17-year-old Spyros with autism spectrum disorders, Mrs. Myrto, mother of 24-year-old Nana with quadriplegia and mental disability, but also Mrs. Eva, mother of 6-year-old Faye, with Rett Syndrome. At the same time, we decided to create a questionnaire to collect a larger amount of answers. The questionnaire was anonymous and the questions were mostly of open type and scale. The reason we chose this, was because we consider each experience to be a separate phenomenon, while we did not want to exclude or limit the respondents in any way. This questionnaire was shared on “My Life with Giannis” Facebook page, after contacting Mrs. Stamatatou, its administrator, and collected a total of 82 answers.
Already having these data sources, we were able to collect our findings which will be presented later on. First of all, an element that was common in the behavior of people with disabilities during the lockdown period, was their tendency to “clam up” and keep to themselves. The lockdown deprived them of the opportunity to do the activities that made them happy everyday, resulting in people presenting such behaviors. “Theatre is her passion. The interruption was the biggest blow for her. She kept to herself again, she lost her glow. For her, theatre was a way of expression and communication,” Nana’s mother said. Many parents have tried to find alternative ways of entertaining their children. They tried to put themselves in their children’s place in order to help them, to walk in their shoes. They started taking walks with them in the park, watching educational programs on State Television at that time, but they also improvised when it came to any other activity they believed would have a positive impact on their child’s psychology. Therefore, their empathy for their children inevitably developed, but also their ingenuity and creativity in their attempt to create a new reality that makes their children happy.
The continuous isolation of all family members in the same house encouraged the domestic tension during this period. “I can’t say with certainty that this period helped our relations. Tension existed.” said worriedly Ms. Myrto. It would be extremely hard for parents to cope during this period if they didn’t develop their patience and their understanding skills. This pandemic period was difficult for everyone, but especially for the children who need a routine for a peaceful life. The problem — solving was one more challenge at which parents succeeded. Parents had to develop their self-control so as to not let their fatigue have a negative impact on their children’s prosperity. 50% of the people who participated in the questionnaire said that they were calm and patient while facing all the changes that the obligatory isolation brought.
It was a big surprise for all of the members of our team to figure out that parents of children with disabilities, apart from developing specific emotional intelligence skills, they developed their leadership skills. According to the interview with social worker Maria Soulakeli, the reason that children faced the isolation challenge better than experts expected, is that family members became role-models for them. It wasn’t difficult for them to obey to the new rules because they saw their parents adapt easily. Besides, most of the people that participated in the questionnaire, said that they faced this challenge without the help — support of specialists.
During this period, parents had to explain to their children not only the situation of the pandemic, but also the reason why they have to obey to the new rules regarding the pandemic. Social worker Maria Soulakeli shared with us that the most frequent advice she used to give to parents during the pandemic, is to not hide the truth from their children. More specifically, her advice was to make children “ active participants ” in the new reality, providing them with all the necessary information. And they did! Parents managed to successfully inform their children about the pandemic by developing their communication and emotional intelligence skills. Furthermore, they taught them how to find the sources of information by themselves as many of them have access to the Internet and profiles on social media.
Despite all the challenges during this isolation, parents gained much self confidence as they managed to successfully protect their mental health and help their children adapt to the new rules without the support of specialists. According to Ms. Soulelaki, parents now have more self — confidence and feel more sure about their skills as they experienced this challenge. To conclude, we understand from the questionnaire results that even if parents of children with disabilities faced various difficulties during the isolation period, they had the chance to develop their emotional intelligence and leadership skills.
Konstantina Angelidou, Grasiela Varkari, Myrto Galanopoulou, Margarita Kammenou, Ioannis Kogias, Ina Makrydaki, Katerina Somi
