Analysis of Psychosocial Adjustment in the Family During Confinement: Problems and Habits of Children and Youth and Parental Stress and Resilience

Abstract

The COVID-19 health crisis has led to a dramatic change in dynamics and habits of families, which may be a factor involved in the development and maintenance of problems and difficulties in children. The present study is a cross-sectional study that aims to describe and analyze the relationship between the difficulties in psychological adjustment and the change of habits of the infant-juvenile population as perceived by their parents and their stress and resilience during the total confinement of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain, as well as analyzing the course of the changes and the relationships between weeks 3 to 6, that is, the score of different participants in each week of the confinement. The sample is comprised of 883 parents of children and adolescents between 3 and 18 years of age. Children’s psychological adjustment, children’s habits, parental stress, and parental resilience were assessed by parents. The results show that parents perceive a change in the habits and psychological difficulties in their children. At the same time, our results describe parents with a high level of stress and resilience, with differences depending on the children’s ages. The time of confinement accentuates the perception of parents about the psychological difficulties of their children and parental stress, as well as a decrease in resilience. These difficulties are reduced when the parent has resilience competencies. These results show that the resilience of parents mediate the relationship between parental stress and psychological problems of their children. These results shows that COVID-19 lockdown had a considerable effect on families, both on children and parents. Some practical implications based on results are provided.

Emotional Problems in Spanish Children and Adolescents during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review

“…, 2020;Romero et al, 2020). Similarly, in four studies it was found that higher parental stress was related to more emotional problems in children and adolescents (Andrés-Romero et al, 2021;Ezpeleta et al, 2020;Romero et al, 2020), in two papers it was related to mood problems and anxiety (Melero et al, 2021;, and in another research it was related to depression and anxiety . In another study, high scores in parental depression and anxiety were related to children's and adolescents' emotional problems (Romero et al, 2020).…”

“…Access to an outdoor space during confinement has been shown to be a protective factor against anxiety in one of the studies (Francisco et al, 2020), whereas in another it has been related to more emotional problems (Berasategi et al, 2021). Likewise, a decrease in routines as a result of the pandemic has been associated with emotional problems (Andrés- Romero et al, 2021;Romero et al, 2020) and emotion-regulation problems (Domínguez-Álvarez, López -Romero, Isdahl-Troye, et al, 2020).…”

“…The family variables most related to the emotional problems of children and adolescents were parental stress, low parental resilience, and an unstructured parenting style, characterized by little regularity in their children's routines (Andrés-Romero et al, 2021;Domínguez-Álvarez, López-Romero, Isdahl-Troye, et al, 2020;Ezpeleta et al, 2020;Melero et al, 2021;Romero et al, 2020). Likewise, parental stress has also been linked in other studies to stress reactions in children (Imran et al, 2020).…”

“…Twelve studies found a relationship between emotional problems and changes caused by the outbreak of the pandemic and confinement. Nine of these studies concluded that emotional problems increased during the lockdown (Andrés- Romero et al, 2021;Berasategi et al, 2021;Erades & Morales, 2020;Gómez-Becerra et al, 2020;Lavigne-Cerván et al, 2021;Liébana-Presa et al, 2020;Pizarro-Ruiz & Ordóñez-Camblor, 2021;Romero et al, 2020). Thus, two studies found that emotional problems decreased as confinement ended (Ezpeleta et al, 2020;.…”

Are there any changes in mothers' attitudes? Analysis of the impact of the COVID-19 quarantine on child-rearing attitudes

“…Research also suggests that during the COVID-19 pandemic both Turkish and Chinese parents were inconsistent in their parenting strategies, which potentially stemmed from the children's stay in the same environment for a long time ( Toran et al, 2021 ). Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic and governments' lockdown restrictions were found to have a negative effect on parenting skills, and this negative effect has caused parents to take stricter attitudes towards their children ( Andrés-Romero et al, 2021 , Chung et al, 2020 ). Similarly, research conducted by Riazi et al (2021) revealed that with the COVID-19 pandemic, parents were excessively controlling their children, displaying an overly intrusive attitude from choosing playgrounds to whom to play with and where to touch.…”