Parenting and Adjustment Problems among Preschoolers during COVID-19

Area of Science:

• Developmental science
• Child psychology
• Stress and coping

Background:

• Developmental science examines risk and protective factors for children facing sociohistorical stressors.
• The COVID-19 pandemic presented a unique natural experiment for studying family and child adaptation.
• Understanding child adjustment during transitions, like preschool to home learning, is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the relationship between family context and child adjustment during the COVID-19 home learning transition.
• To investigate if children with higher stress levels (basal cortisol) were more affected by the transition.
• To test the biological sensitivity to context theory in a real-world crisis.

Main Methods:

• Study involved 74 children (average age 53.56 months) and their parents.
• Parental reports assessed the home learning transition context.
• Salivary cortisol levels were measured pre-transition; path analyses were used for statistical modeling.

Main Results:

• Children with higher morning basal cortisol showed increased anger with harsh/inconsistent parenting during the COVID-19 home learning transition.
• This effect remained significant even after controlling for household chaos, socioeconomic status, and supportive parenting.
• Supportive parenting models were also examined.

Conclusions:

• Findings support the biological sensitivity to context theory.
• Childhood stress responses are influenced by the interplay between individual biological stress markers and contextual factors like parenting.
• This research provides insights into child adjustment during the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.