The purpose of this study is to understand North Korean female defectors experiencing adolescent children's parenting from an insider perspective and to provide a basis for policy support and social welfare practice. Research question of the study for... The purpose of this study is to understand North Korean female defectors experiencing adolescent children's parenting from an insider perspective and to provide a basis for policy support and social welfare practice. Research question of the study for achieving the objective is 'what is the experience of parenting adolescent of North Korean female defectors.' The researcher performed the phenomenological qualitative research, which reflects the essence of the experience within the social cultural context in order to in-depth understand North Korean women's parenting experience and applied Giorgi's analysis of the phenomenological method. Participants in this study are 8 North Korean female defectors who are parenting middle and high school adolescent children. All are mid-40 years and living in South Korea. Data collection methods were focused on to explore the nature and meaning of experience in the form of non-structured in-depth interviews. The researcher derived 142 units of meaning from the interview of the participants' experiences of parenting their children, and categorized them in 33 sub-categorizes. In the last those sub-categories were organized in 9 structures. The structures of the context in accordance with the participants' overall experiences is derived as follows. <Difficult penetrance into South Korean society> Some North Korean women defected to China for their sustenance but to avoid personal unsafety from the Chinese public security system they entered South Korea with no other choice, and some were to find a better life through a news about South Korea and experience of capitalist system in China, and some suffered from psychological wounds of trauma and defection in the course of life in North Korea entered the South. <Difficult adaptation to South Korean society> Lack of social capital, economic activities without basis, broker cost for their families in South Korea, and to send living costs to their families that remain in North Korea were borne from the starting line of the South Korean life. Inferior social position in South Korea and psychological conflict arouse their homesickness. North Korean female defectors spent their time in busy engrossed to adapt to capitalism neglecting the child care. <Overburden of parenting circumstances> The female had to deal with parenting alone due to the role of single parents, the limited role of the stepfather and the husband's indifference parenting. Interregnum causing lack of children learning, experiencing cultural, and affection was shown to problems and put to conflict to the children. The cumulative stress of parenting was subjected to depression. <Competitive reality of South Korean education system> Within South Korea society that demands more parental involvement in education than the North, they had struggled to follow without enough information in the competitive South Korean educational environment. <Difficulty of parenting adolescent children with added developmental struggles> The children are nervous about being exposed and concealed that they are North Korean defectors and trying to be assimilated to South Korean students losing their identity. <Difficulty of parenting role change in a different social system> They were in conflict with and failure to understand the children's reaction unlike North Korean adolescent. They were experiencing the chaos with the children applied North Korean discipline and controlling parenting style. They were concerned about exposure to bad social climate of the South Korea to open codified and reckless information on the Internet. <Discovering the parenting role for my children> The parents roles that North Korean female defectors prefer were to protect from the environment and culture, to help the children's self-awareness to present the vision and motivation. Also they selected roles of the admissions strategist for mainstream entry, role of modifying the target according to the environment and social circumstances of South Korea, role of continuing to focus on parent authority. <Growth through coping and overcoming processes> North Korean female defectors were feeling the need of switch to nurture way to communicate, not raising children in the same manner as in the North. Their children went themselves became strong through their North Korean defectors' identities and they felt worthwhile and proud in overcoming learning difficulties in school life. <Wishes for a better role for remaining parenting issues> Some had physical and mental illness in failure to supply and demand does not depend on economic activity and could even challenge their children to come off as a front-line of occupation. Some were busy to rectify the child's behavioral problems caused by the parenting interregnum and stress from their divorce crisis in the accumulation of their husbands' indifferent attitude and life stress in the household economy. They demanded a better parenting education and the activation of mentoring services for their children with learning and emotional and psychological help. This study shows that North Korean female defectors' parenting experience required to transform the child-rearing methods in the process of adapting to the different social systems and they choose the best parenting style that is right for each despite the difficulty in adapting in South Korean life. Moreover, there will also be an opportunity to be able to find a specific support policy development and service provision to promote healthy identity formation and empowerment for North Korean female defectors.
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