Abstract:
Raising a deaf child can affect parents, siblings, and family members in various ways.
The presence of a deaf child may affect family life in terms of family interaction, family
resources, parenting style, and access to support for the child. Parenting stress affects parentchild
relationships and important child outcomes. Higher levels of parenting stress have been
related to poorer social and emotional development in both deaf and hearing children. The study
explored the lived experience of parents to raise children with hearing impairment regarding the
lived experience of parents of raising deaf children, how parents cope with challenges that they
faced in bringing up their deaf children, and lessons that can be drawn from the parental lived
experience of raising deaf children. A qualitative research approach on particular emphasis on
phenomenological research design and snowball sampling technique was employed to conduct
the study. A semi-structured interview was used as a data collection instrument. The targeted
place was Andasa kebele found between Bahir Dar and Tsisisat. A total of eight hearing parents
having deaf children were selected purposively. The data analysis was carried out based on the
thematic analysis. The finding shows that the majority of respondent parents the lived experience
to raise deaf children is difficult they faced different challenges like communication barriers,
psychological problems, financial problems and lack of support from government and non-
governmental organization participant parents use coping mechanism to reduce families stress
like religion and adaptability. According to the lived experience of the participant parents had
numerous negative experiences caused by a lack of sufficient knowledge about the experiences of
child rearing practice of parents’ who have children with deaf. Among the participant parents
didn’t hope that the deafness of their children will be cured by spiritual remedy including
miracle and the use of holy water. They further didn’t aspire that their children will get ma rried
and have children through leading their independent life. Based on the finding of the study, the
involvement of the concerned federal ministries in promoting and coordinating interventions
needs to be available for parents and children with deaf.