IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/cysrev/v122y2021ics0190740920320089.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Parenting activities and the transition to home-based education during the COVID-19 pandemic

Author

Listed:
  • Lee, Shawna J.
  • Ward, Kaitlin P.
  • Chang, Olivia D.
  • Downing, Kasey M.

Abstract

This study reports on parent-child dynamics during initial COVID-19 related school closures, based on cross-sectional analyses of a survey that utilized a convenience sampling approach. Data were collected in April 2020, approximately five weeks after the World Health Organization declared that the Coronavirus was a pandemic. Participants (N = 405) were adults recruited throughout the U.S. This study examines data from parents (69% mothers and 31% fathers) with at least one child 0–12 years of age. The majority were White (71%) and 41% had at least a bachelor’s degree. The majority of parents (78%) were educating their child at home due to COVID-19. Most (77.1%) reported use of online tools for at-home education, including educational apps, social media, and school-provided electronic resources. More than one-third (34.7%) of parents said their child’s behavior had changed since the pandemic, including being sad, depressed, and lonely. Most parents were spending more time involved in daily caregiving of their children since COVID-19. Two out of every five parents met the PHQ-8 criteria for major depression or severe major depression (40.0%) and the GAD-7 criteria for moderate or severe anxiety (39.9%). Multivariate analyses indicated that, compared to non-depressed parents, parents who met criteria for probable major or severe depression (B = −0.16, 95% CI = [−0.29, −0.02], p = .021) and parenting stress (B = −0.37, 95% CI = [−0.47, −0.27], p < .001) were negatively associated with parents’ perceived preparation to educate at home. Compared to parents with minimal or mild anxiety, parents with moderate or severe anxiety reported higher child anxiety scores (B = 0.17, 95% CI = [0.06, 0.28], p = .002). Parenting stress was also positively associated with higher child anxiety scores (B = 0.40, 95% CI = [0.32, 0.48], p < .001). Content analyses of open-ended questions indicated that school closures were a significant disruption, followed by lack of physical activity, and social isolation. Overall, study results suggested that parents’ mental health may be an important factor linked to at-home education and child wellbeing during the pandemic.

Suggested Citation

  • Lee, Shawna J. & Ward, Kaitlin P. & Chang, Olivia D. & Downing, Kasey M., 2021. "Parenting activities and the transition to home-based education during the COVID-19 pandemic," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:122:y:2021:i:c:s0190740920320089
    DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105585
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740920320089
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105585?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Saijun Zhang & Ying Hao & Yali Feng & Na Youn Lee, 2022. "COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts on Children with Developmental Disabilities: Service Disruption, Transition to Telehealth, and Child Wellbeing," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(6), pages 1-12, March.
    2. Martina Maněnová & Janet Wolf & Martin Skutil & Jitka Vítová, 2021. "Combating the Coronavirus Pandemic in Small Schools," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-15, June.
    3. Freisthler, Bridget & Gruenewald, Paul J. & Tebben, Erin & Shockley McCarthy, Karla & Price Wolf, Jennifer, 2021. "Understanding at-the-moment stress for parents during COVID-19 stay-at-home restrictions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 279(C).
    4. Timothy J. Grigsby & Krista Howard & Jeffrey T. Howard & Jessica Perrotte, 2023. "COVID-19 Concerns, Perceived Stress, and Increased Alcohol Use Among Adult Women in the United States," Clinical Nursing Research, , vol. 32(1), pages 84-93, January.
    5. Ana Dias & Annibal Scavarda & Haydee Silveira & Luiz Felipe Scavarda & Kiran Kumar Kondamareddy, 2021. "The Online Education System: COVID-19 Demands, Trends, Implications, Challenges, Lessons, Insights, Opportunities, Outlooks, and Directions in the Work from Home," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-21, November.
    6. Amanda Klein-Cox & Angela Tobin & Ramona Denby, 2023. "When Kinship Caregivers Became Teachers: Role Stress and Strain from Remote Learning during COVID-19," Societies, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-29, August.
    7. José Juan Carrión-Martínez & Cristina Pinel-Martínez & María Dolores Pérez-Esteban & Isabel María Román-Sánchez, 2021. "Family and School Relationship during COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(21), pages 1-18, November.
    8. Jason Furman & Melissa S. Kearney & Wilson Powell III, 2021. "The role of childcare challenges in the US jobs market recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic," Working Paper Series WP21-8, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    9. Jan Vagedes & Karin Michael & Mohsen Sobh & Mohammad O. A. Islam & Silja Kuderer & Christian Jeske & Anne Kaman & David Martin & Katrin Vagedes & Michael Erhart & Ulrike Ravens-Sieberer & Tomáš Zdraži, 2023. "Lessons Learned—The Impact of the Third Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic on German Waldorf Parents’ Support Needs and Their Rating of Children’s Health-Related Quality of Life: A Cross-Sectional Online S," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(6), pages 1-13, March.
    10. Markus Stracke & Miriam Heinzl & Anne Dorothee Müller & Kristin Gilbert & Anne Amalie Elgaard Thorup & Jean Lillian Paul & Hanna Christiansen, 2023. "Mental Health Is a Family Affair—Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis on the Associations between Mental Health Problems in Parents and Children during the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(5), pages 1-18, March.
    11. Tsun-Yu Huang & Wen-Kuo Chen & Venkateswarlu Nalluri & Thao-Trang Huynh-Cam, 2022. "Evaluating E-Teaching Adoption Criteria for Indian Educational Organizations Using Fuzzy Delphi-TOPSIS Approach," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(13), pages 1-18, June.
    12. Mengqing Long & Jia Huang & Yishun Peng & Yawen Mai & Xian Yuan & Xinhua Yang, 2022. "The Short- and Long-Term Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown on Child Maltreatment," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(6), pages 1-12, March.
    13. Ward, Kaitlin P. & Lee, Shawna J., 2022. "Associations of food insecurity and material social support with parent and child mental health during COVID-19," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    14. Ahlam Mohammed Al-Abdullatif & Hibah Khalid Aladsani, 2022. "Parental Involvement in Distance K-12 Learning and the Effect of Technostress: Sustaining Post-Pandemic Distance Education in Saudi Arabia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-19, September.
    15. Çelik, S. & Tomris, G. & Tuna, D.M., 2022. "The COVID-19 pandemic: The evaluation of the emergency remote parent training program based on at-home support for children with down syndrome," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    16. Wallace, Lacey N., 2023. "Parenting practices and adolescent delinquency: COVID-19 impact in the United States," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    17. Mariana Loezar-Hernández & Erica Briones-Vozmediano & Elena Ronda-Pérez & Laura Otero-García, 2023. "Juggling during Lockdown: Balancing Telework and Family Life in Pandemic Times and Its Perceived Consequences for the Health and Wellbeing of Working Women," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(6), pages 1-17, March.
    18. Stephanie Deeb & Devin Madden & Timnit Ghebretinsae & Joyce Lin & Umut Ozbek & Victoria Mayer & Nita Vangeepuram, 2022. "Child Disruptions, Remote Learning, and Parent Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(11), pages 1-16, May.
    19. Li, Shifeng & Xu, Qiongying & Xie, Jing & Wang, Lei & Li, Huining & Ma, Li & Xia, Ruixue, 2022. "Associations of parenting daily hassles with parents’ mental health during the COVID-19 school closure," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 311(C).
    20. Jinho Kim & Sujeong Park & S. V. Subramanian & Taehoon Kim, 2023. "The Psychological Costs of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Heterogeneous Effects in South Korea: Evidence from a Difference-in-Differences Analysis," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 455-476, February.
    21. Dimitra Panagiotopoulou & Kalliroi Papadopoulou, 2021. "Impact of the COVID-19 Quarantine on Young Children’s Family-Based Daily Activities in Greece," Journal of Educational and Developmental Psychology, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 11(2), pages 1-56, November.
    22. Tiitinen, Laura & Harrikari, Timo & Koivula, Sanna & Romakkaniemi, Marjo & Fiorentino, Vera, 2023. "Home school at the edge of chaos during the lockdown: Social workers’ perspectives," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:122:y:2021:i:c:s0190740920320089. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/childyouth .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.