Forgiveness and Emotional Well-Being: A Study of Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

This study investigates the relationship between forgiveness and subjective well-being among parents of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Using a quantitative correlational approach, the research aims to determine whether forgiveness significantly impacts the subjective well-being of these parents. The study involved 43 participants from SLBN 1 Palangka Raya, who completed questionnaires measuring forgiveness (Heartland Forgiveness Scale) and subjective well-being (SAPAN and SWLS scales). Descriptive statistics revealed high levels of forgiveness and subjective well-being among participants. However, Pearson correlation analysis indicated no significant relationship between the two variables. This suggests that while parents exhibit high forgiveness, it does not necessarily translate to increased life satisfaction or emotional balance. Subjective well-being is influenced by multiple factors, including gratitude, personality, self-esteem, spirituality, and social support. The study highlights the need for further research to explore these additional factors and address limitations such as incomplete samples and participant confusion during data collection. These insights are crucial for supporting the psychological well-being of parents with children who have special needs.


INTRODUCTION
Having children is a dream for every parent as their presence completes a family.Parents always want their children to be healthy, intelligent, and perfect physically, spiritually, and mentally.However, not all children are born in a normal condition, and some parents must accept the reality of having children with special needs (ABK).Children with special needs are those who grow and develop under different conditions compared to typical children.The term ABK does not only refer to children with disabilities but also includes the special services they require (Nisa, Mambela, & Badiah, 2018).Children with special needs may experience various physical, mental, intellectual, social, and emotional limitations or disabilities that affect their growth and development.The ABK category includes children with visual impairments (blind), hearing impairments (deaf), intellectual disabilities (mental retardation), physical disabilities, social disabilities, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), multiple disabilities, specific learning disabilities, communication difficulties, slow learners, and children with special intelligence or talents (Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection of the Republic of Indonesia, Jakarta, 2013).
Research by Faisal and Hermina (2019) shows that parents of children with ASD experience emotional exhaustion that affects their physical health, including headaches, digestive disorders, high blood pressure, sleep problems, fatigue, boredom, anxiety, despair, difficulty adapting, withdrawal, irritability, loneliness, and restlessness.ASD is characterized by communication and language disorders, a lack of interest in interacting with others, and repetitive behaviors (Mash & Wolfe, 2012).ASD can be experienced by children from various social and economic backgrounds.The birth of a child is indeed a source of happiness for parents, especially mothers, but it does not always meet their expectations.Positive expectations held by parents influence the emergence of positive emotions, which are related to one's happiness.Research by Anggraini (2013) shows that 34.48% of parents feel very disappointed about having children with special needs, 44.82% harbor feelings of guilt, 68.96% feel guilty and responsible for their child's condition, 58.62% feel ashamed, 51.72% worry that their child's condition will affect relationships, and 58.62% accept their child's condition and strive to provide the best.Sulistina and Rohmatun (2018) state that gratitude among parents of children with special needs has a positive impact, making caregiving more important, meaningful, and loving.
In interviews with three parents of ABK on February 9, 2023, diverse reactions were revealed.Two respondents felt sad, rejected, and guilty.The third respondent accepted their child's condition without guilt but was concerned about the child's future.Happiness, as subjective well-being, involves cognitive and affective evaluations of life satisfaction and fulfillment (Diener, Oishi, & Lucas, 2003).Parents feel happy because they feel fortunate to care for children with special needs, aligning with Jones' (2011) view that happiness is found through the strength of oneself and their children.Diener et al. (1999) explain that subjective well-being consists of affective components (positive and negative affects) and cognitive components (life satisfaction).Happiness is related to quality of life, physical condition, and social relationships (Diener et al., 2018).Happiness has the same meaning as subjective wellbeing (Diener, 1984).Seligman (2005) explains that happiness is influenced by external factors (environment) and internal factors (past, optimism about the future, present happiness).Satisfaction with the past can be achieved through an optimistic view, gratitude, and forgiveness (Diponegoro & Mulyono, 2015).
Forgiveness, according to Thompson et al. (2005), is the process of perceiving mistakes that changes negative responses into positive or neutral ones.Forgiveness has three dimensions: forgiveness of self, forgiveness of others, and forgiveness of situations.Parents of children with special needs often feel guilty and find it difficult to forgive themselves.Forgiveness as a coping strategy reduces stress and supports happiness (Worthington & Scherer, 2004).People who forgive feel happier and more positive compared to those who do not forgive (Shekhar, Jamwal & Sharma, 2014).Forgiveness plays an important role in a person's happiness.A high level of forgiveness is associated with high subjective well-being, and vice versa (Agustin & Zuroida, 2022). Swanson's (2011) research shows that self-forgiveness is associated with positive affect and acceptance of the past.This study aims to examine the relationship between forgiveness and subjective well-being in parents of children with special needs with ASD.It is hoped that this will provide useful insights to support the psychological well-being of parents with children with special needs and contribute to further research in this field.

METHOD Research Design and Variables
This study employs a quantitative research method with a correlational approach, aiming to determine the existence of a relationship between the independent variable (forgiveness) and the dependent variable (subjective well-being).Quantitative research is an objective theory testing approach to examine the relationships between variables and can be measured using instruments, allowing numerical data to be analyzed using statistical methods (Creswell, 2014).The study involves two variables, namely variable X and variable Y: Independent Variable (X): Forgiveness.Dependent Variable (Y): Subjective Well-Being.

Operational Definitions
Forgiveness Forgiveness is the process of understanding the wrongdoing experienced and responding to oneself, others, and the situations that cause it, shifting from negative feelings to neutral or positive ones.Individuals change their perspective and forgive themselves, others who have hurt them, and situations beyond their control.Forgiveness is measured using the Heartland Forgiveness Scale (HFS) by Thompson et al., (2005), which is based on three dimensions: forgiveness of self, forgiveness of others, and forgiveness of situations.A higher score on the scale indicates higher forgiveness levels, and vice versa.Subjective Well-Being Subjective well-being is achieved by individuals perceiving various concepts leading to positive emotions and actions experienced without negative emotions, including life satisfaction and affectivity.Subjective well-being is measured using the SAPAN (Positive and Negative Affect Scale) designed by Watson, Clark, and Tellegen, and the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) by Diener (Seligman, 2005).Higher scores indicate higher levels of subjective well-being, while lower scores indicate lower levels.

Population, Sample, and Sampling Technique
Population The population in this study includes parents of children with special needs, particularly those with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), attending SLB Negeri 1 Palangka Raya.The school has a total of 63 students.Sample The study uses the entire population as the sample due to its relatively small size.According to Arikunto (2012), if the population is less than 100 individuals, the entire population is taken as the sample.Hence, the sample size is 63.Sampling Technique The sampling technique used is saturated sampling, which involves taking the entire population as the sample (Sugiyono, 2017).

Measurement Tools
The study employs questionnaires to collect data on subjective well-being and forgiveness, using a Likert scale for measurement.Subjective Well-Being Measurement Tool The tools used to measure subjective well-being are the SAPAN and SWLS, with the SAPAN consisting of 20 items (10 positive and 10 negative affects) and SWLS consisting of 5 items.Both scales are adapted to Indonesian by Akhtar (2019).The SAPAN showed reliability coefficients (Cronbach's alpha) of 0.861 for Positive Affect and 0.853 for Negative Affect, while SWLS showed a reliability of 0.828.Higher scores indicate higher subjective well-being.Total 25 Forgiveness Measurement Tool The Heartland Forgiveness Scale (HFS) by Thompson et al. (2005) with 18 items is used, adapted to Indonesian by Tiffany Chandra (2019).The HFS showed high reliability with an overall Cronbach's alpha of 0.830, and 0.720, 0.730, and 0.770 for the self, others, and situation dimensions, respectively.Higher scores indicate higher forgiveness.Validity and reliability tests are conducted using a tryout method.Hadi (2000) explains that in this method, the results are directly used to test the research hypothesis.Subjective Well-Being Measurement Tool.Validity Test Validity testing is done using SPSS 25.0.The SAPAN showed 11 valid items after eliminating 9 items with a corrected item-total correlation index < 0.3.The SWLS retained all 5 items.Reliability Test Using Cronbach's Alpha, the SAPAN showed a reliability of 0.867 and the SWLS showed 0.813, indicating both scales are reliable.

Data Analysis Method
Data analysis is conducted to answer the research questions and test the hypotheses (Sugiyono, 2017), using SPSS 25.0 for Windows. 1) Descriptive Analysis Descriptive analysis describes the collected data without generalizing (Sugiyono, 2017).2) Assumption Testing.3) Normality Test Tests whether the data are normally distributed (Sunjoyo, 2013).Data are considered normal if the significance is greater than 0.05.4) Linearity Test Determines if the independent and dependent variables have a linear relationship using ANOVA.A linear relationship exists if the significance (p) > 0.05 (Siregar & Sofyan, 2014).5) Hypothesis Testing The study uses Pearson's product-moment correlation technique to examine the relationship between forgiveness and subjective well-being.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Research Setting and Data Collection
The research was conducted by distributing questionnaires at SLBN 1 Palangka Raya, targeting parents of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD).Data collection took place on December 13, 2023.Despite efforts to reach all 63 intended subjects, only 43 participated due to various constraints, such as personal commitments.

Participant Characteristics
A total of 43 participants responded to the study.As shown in Table 5, 72% of participants were female, while 28% were male, indicating a higher number of female respondents.Table 6 shows the age range of participants from 29 to 60 years, with the majority clustered around the ages of 38, 40, 41, and 42, each representing 9% of the sample.

Descriptive Statistics of Research Variables
The descriptive statistics in Table 7 show the following: the mean score for forgiveness was 51.40 (SD = 7.610), the mean score for subjective well-being (SAPAN) was 45.35 (SD = 7.348), and the mean score for subjective well-being (SWLS) was 15.49 (SD = 3.930).Table 8 indicates that 58% of participants had high forgiveness levels, 42% had medium levels, and none were in the low category.The mean score suggests that most parents of children with ASD exhibit high forgiveness.As shown in Table 9, 81% of participants had high subjective well-being, 14% had medium, and 5% had low subjective well-being, with a mean score of 45.35.Table 10 shows that 63% of participants had high subjective well-being (SWLS), 33% had medium, and 5% had low subjective well-being, with a mean score of 15.49.

Assumption Testing
Normality and linearity tests were conducted to ensure the data met the assumptions for hypothesis testing.Based on Table 11, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test results show that all variables have p-values greater than 0.05, indicating normal distribution.Table 12 shows that the deviation from linearity has a significance value of 0.505, indicating a linear relationship between forgiveness and subjective well-being.

Hypothesis Testing
Pearson correlation was used to test the hypothesis regarding the relationship between forgiveness and subjective well-being.Table 13 indicates that the Pearson correlation coefficient between forgiveness and subjective well-being is -0.177 with a significance value of 0.128 (p>0.05),suggesting no significant relationship between the two variables.The results indicate that the hypothesis of a significant relationship between forgiveness and subjective well-being among parents of children with ASD is not supported.The analysis shows no significant correlation between forgiveness and subjective well-being.This implies that forgiveness does not necessarily guarantee life satisfaction, joy, or reduced negative emotions like sadness or anger.Subjective well-being is influenced by multiple factors, including gratitude, personality, self-esteem, spirituality, and social support (Dewi & Nasywa, 2019).Most participants exhibited high levels of forgiveness (mean = 51.40) and subjective well-being (SAPAN mean = 45.35,SWLS mean = 15.49).According to Thompson et al. (2005), parents have generally accepted and transformed negative feelings into positive ones, forgiving themselves, the situation, and others.However, subjective well-being, as proposed by Diener, Oishi, and Lucas (2003), is influenced by various factors like health, emotional experiences, and relationships.
Despite the high levels of forgiveness and subjective well-being, forgiveness did not significantly enhance life satisfaction or balance positive and negative affects among parents of children with ASD.Achieving subjective well-being requires more than forgiveness.Ekawardhani, Mar'at, and Sahrani (2019) found that self-forgiveness has a smaller role than self-esteem in influencing subjective well-being, highlighting that factors other than forgiveness are more dominant.This aligns with Utami et al. (2017), who emphasized selfesteem's stronger impact on subjective well-being over forgiveness.The hypothesis's rejection may be due to the forgiveness and subjective well-being scales' limitations, which might not fully consider parents' conditions and experiences.Despite the study's rigorous methodology, several limitations remain, including an incomplete sample, participants' confusion during data collection, and the lack of consideration for participants' physical conditions.

Implications for Counseling and Guidance
The findings from this study, which indicate no significant relationship between forgiveness and subjective well-being among parents of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), highlight several implications for counseling and guidance services.Firstly, counseling programs should focus on a holistic approach to improving subjective well-being, recognizing that forgiveness alone is not sufficient.While forgiveness is a valuable component, counselors should also address other critical factors such as self-esteem, gratitude, spirituality, and social support.Integrating these elements into counseling sessions can provide a more comprehensive strategy for enhancing overall well-being.Secondly, the high levels of forgiveness observed among participants suggest that these parents may have already worked through many of their negative emotions.Therefore, counseling services should build on this foundation by helping parents further develop their coping mechanisms and emotional resilience.Techniques such as mindfulness, stress management, and emotional regulation can be beneficial in maintaining and enhancing their well-being.Thirdly, given the significant role of social support in subjective well-being, counselors should facilitate support groups for parents of children with ASD.These groups can provide a platform for sharing experiences, offering mutual support, and reducing feelings of isolation.Building a strong community network can significantly contribute to parents' emotional health.Additionally, counselors should consider the unique challenges faced by parents of children with ASD, such as stress and burnout.Tailored interventions that address these specific issues can help parents manage their daily challenges more effectively.Programs that focus on parental self-care, stress reduction techniques, and effective parenting strategies for children with ASD can be particularly impactful.Furthermore, the findings suggest the importance of self-esteem in influencing subjective well-being.Counseling services should include self-esteem enhancement strategies, helping parents recognize their strengths, accomplishments, and the vital role they play in their children's lives.Activities that boost self-esteem, such as positive affirmations, goal setting, and achievement recognition, can be integrated into counseling sessions.Lastly, continuous evaluation and adaptation of counseling programs are essential.Feedback from parents should be regularly solicited to assess the effectiveness of the interventions and to make necessary adjustments.This ensures that the counseling services remain relevant and responsive to the evolving needs of parents.By implementing these strategies, counseling and guidance services can better support the mental health and well-being of parents of children with ASD, fostering a more balanced and fulfilling life despite the challenges they face.

CONCLUSION
The study reveals that there is no significant relationship between forgiveness and subjective well-being among parents of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD).Despite high levels of forgiveness and subjective well-being reported by participants, the results indicate that forgiveness alone does not significantly enhance life satisfaction or balance positive and negative emotions.Subjective well-being is influenced by multiple factors beyond

Table 2 .
Blueprint for Forgiveness Variables

Table 3 .
Tryout Blueprint for Subjective Well-Being Measurement Tool Forgiveness Measurement Tool.Validity Test Validity testing using SPSS 25.0 showed 14 valid items after eliminating 4 items with a corrected item-total correlation index < 0.3.Reliability Test Using Cronbach's Alpha, the forgiveness scale showed a reliability of 0.788, indicating it is reliable.