Children's perspectives and experiences of the COVID‐19 pandemic and UK public health measures

Abstract

Background:The COVID-19 pandemic has had profound impacts on how we live our lives; yet, the implications for children and the effects on children's everyday lives have been relatively underacknowledged. Understanding children's views on COVID-19 and related restrictions on their lives provides an important opportunity to understand how children have responded to the pandemic, including the impacts on their social and emotional well-being.Objective: This study explored the experiences and perspectives of children in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic and related restrictions on everyday life.Method: A qualitative study using semistructured online interviews with participatory drawings was undertaken between May and July 2020. Eighteen children from England and Wales, aged 7-11 years, participated in interviews. Findings: Themes included children's reflections on (1) COVID-19 as a deadly contagion; (2) fears and sadness and (3) social responsibility and opportunities to respond positively. Conclusions: Young children offer insightful reflections on their experiences during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. Children and young people's perspectives must be considered in future public health discourse.

Young people’s experiences of COVID-19 messaging at the start of the UK lockdown: lessons for positive engagement and information sharing

“…Recently published research shows that parents report smaller declines in the psychological wellbeing of adolescents, compared to children under 11 [ 11 ]. These differences may be elucidated by a recent study with younger children (7–11) which highlighted that these pre-adolescent children expressed sadness and fear of their family and friends being at risk of dying from COVID-19 [ 12 ]. In contrast, young people 12–17 years have reported that the greatest impacts of the pandemic have been disruption to their learning because of school closures and limited face-to-face interaction with their social networks [ 13 ].…”

Children’s Views of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Preventive Practices: Comparing Verbal and Visual Empirical Evidence

“…Since the emergence of COVID-19, an abundance of information about infection and transmission risks and related measures to contain the pandemic has been addressed to the public, including children (Provenzi et al, 2020;Thompson et al, 2021;Zou and Tang, 2021). Most countries have imposed restrictive measures and broadcasted campaigns involving visual and verbal slogans to promote citizen observance of safe behavior (Berasategi et al, 2020;Bray et al, 2021a).…”

“…For any teaching intervention or information campaign to be meaningful to them, it is crucial that it starts from their point of view. It is therefore of great importance to gain insight into children's understanding of the novel coronavirus and ways of responding to the crisis (Thompson et al, 2021). Such insight would allow the selection and formulation of age-appropriate and accurate explanations and representations that they could meaningfully handle.…”

“…Few studies so far have investigated children's views of the pandemic (Idoiaga et al, 2020;Thompson et al, 2021;Rydström et al, 2022), although a rapidly growing body of research related to COVID-19 and its consequences on children's wellbeing has evolved during the last 2 years (e.g., Garcia de Avila et al, 2020;Valadez et al, 2020). Interestingly, despite the previously documented lack of appropriate understanding of infectious diseases and prevention practices in non-experts (Jee et al, 2015), recent studies report high levels of awareness of COVID-19 even in young children (Rydström et al, 2022), and their sensitivity in perceiving and adopting adults' reactions to the pandemic (Valadez et al, 2020;Thompson et al, 2021).…”

“…Few studies so far have investigated children's views of the pandemic (Idoiaga et al, 2020;Thompson et al, 2021;Rydström et al, 2022), although a rapidly growing body of research related to COVID-19 and its consequences on children's wellbeing has evolved during the last 2 years (e.g., Garcia de Avila et al, 2020;Valadez et al, 2020). Interestingly, despite the previously documented lack of appropriate understanding of infectious diseases and prevention practices in non-experts (Jee et al, 2015), recent studies report high levels of awareness of COVID-19 even in young children (Rydström et al, 2022), and their sensitivity in perceiving and adopting adults' reactions to the pandemic (Valadez et al, 2020;Thompson et al, 2021). This awareness has been revealed in children's ability to distinguish SARS-CoV-2 (cause) from ; to name common symptoms of the disease (for instance cough, fever, or sneeze); to understand the possibility of asymptomatic infection; to recognize the necessity of preventive and mitigation practices such as social distancing or handwashing; to describe airborne transmission and high contagiousness of the virus (Idoiaga et al, 2020;Bray et al, 2021b;Christidou et al, 2021;Martinerie et al, 2021;Thompson et al, 2021;Bonoti et al, 2022;Maftei et al, 2022;Rydström et al, 2022).…”