Adapting to Adversity: Effects of COVID-19 on Parenting in Chile

Abstract

The pandemic outbreak in March 2020 and its associated sanitary regulations and restrictions triggered an abrupt and significant change for society in general and for families’ organization in particular. In Chile, the Santiago Metropolitan District was under a strict lockdown that involved the closure of the entire educational system. From a systemic-family stress perspective, the impact of these changes might have consequences not only for each individual family member, but for the parental dynamic and, consequently, for children’s well-being. This paper presents the results of a follow-up study showing changes in self-reported parental depression and the perceived home organization of mothers and fathers assessed at three different moments: before the pandemic, at the initial outbreak, and after 1 month of strict lockdown. Relevant moderators were explored using linear mixed models to understand the within-subject changes in mothers’ and fathers’ self-reports across the different assessment times. Financial strain, personality traits of self-criticism and dependency, previous parent–child quality interaction, recent major stressful events, and number of children are highlighted as relevant factors that moderate changes in home chaos and parental mental health perception. Significant risks and protective factors are described for fathers and mothers. The use of pre-pandemic measures as baseline levels enabled the identification of personal and family characteristics that were related to better outcomes. The results help increase our understanding of the sanitary regulations’ impacts on the family system and identify vulnerability indicators that should be considered.

Wellbeing, social media addiction and coping strategies among Chilean adolescents during the pandemic

“…Moreover, finding a positive aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic (positive reframing) and being able to self-distract are two useful coping strategies, that have the potential to positively influence satisfaction with life. For example, given that adolescents were indoors most of the time, they could have developed domestic or other supportive activities that let them distract or entertain themselves ( 66 , 67 ). Our interaction effect indicated that the level of life satisfaction was not correlated to the abusive use of social networks for those adolescents who were highly capable of accepting the COVID-19 situation and its restrictions on daily life, found something positive about it (positive reframing) and were able to self-distract.…”

Trajectories of Parental Daily Stress: An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study during the COVID-19 Lockdown

“…A smaller study with 719 parents showed the number of days in lockdown and their perceptions of children s demands for parental attention increased caregivers' risks of suffering parental burnout [26]. Another study reported an increase in symptoms of depression from the period just before the onset of the pandemic to the start of the lockdown, with these symptoms remaining high later on during the pandemic [27].…”

“…Additionally, stressful life events have been shown to increase the risk of anxiety [46,47] and heightened distress [48], so recent stressful events were included as control variables. Additionally, given that anxiety and depressive symptoms are highly comorbid in both clinical [49] and community samples [50] and given that our previous study indicated that personality factors, specifically dependency and self-criticism, were positively correlated to parental depressive symptoms at the start of the lockdown [27], dependency, self-criticism, and previous parental depression were also included as control variables.…”