Parental Mediation of COVID-19 News and Children’s Emotion Regulation during Lockdown

Morelli, Mara; Graziano, Federica; Chirumbolo, Antonio; Baiocco, Roberto; Longobardi, Emiddia; Trumello, Carmen; Babore, Alessandra; Cattelino, Elena

doi:10.1007/s10826-022-02266-5

Cited by 12 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 59 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Regarding the parental mediation strategies, the association between children's news consumption and negative emotions and anxiety-related behaviors was strongest for children who experienced relatively more restrictive mediation from parentswhich is in line with findings from Buijzen et al (2007) and Morelli et al (2022). This points toward a boomerang effect of restrictive mediation as discussed in mediation literature before (White et al, 2015;Padilla-Walker et al, 2016).…”

Section: Parent and Child Mitigation Strategiessupporting

confidence: 83%

“…Unlike Buijzen et al (2007) and Morelli et al (2022) , active mediation did not affect the relation between children’s news consumption and negative emotions or anxiety-related behaviors; nor did coviewing. It might be insightful to explore parents’ experience on practicing parental mediation strategies as well, by providing parent-reports in future research.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 73%

“…In line with this, a recent study on parental mediation of COVID-19 news in children (6-13 years old), showed that active mediation was related to lower lability/negativity in childrenwhich was measured as the presence of excessive exuberance, disruptive behaviors, and anger. Coviewing was not related to higher or lower levels of lability/negativity, and restrictive mediation was related to higher lability/negativity in children (Morelli et al, 2022). Following the results from past research, we expect: H4: The relation between news consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic and (a) negative emotions and (b) anxiety-related behaviors regarding the pandemic is moderated by parental mediation, with a stronger relation for restrictive parental mediation than for active parental mediation and coviewing.…”

Section: Parental Mediation As Moderator Between News Consumption And...mentioning

confidence: 71%

Section: A Model Of News Avoidancementioning

confidence: 75%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Explaining Children’s News Avoidance During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Ebbinkhuijsen

Buijzen²,

Leeuw³

et al. 2022

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Despite growing concerns that children (8–13 years old) tend to avoid the news, the reasons why have received little research attention. Therefore, the current study aims to develop and test a model conceptualizing the relations between children’s news consumption, news avoidance, emotional responses (negative emotions and anxiety-related behaviors), and parent and child mitigation strategies. The model was tested using data collected during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The current, preregistered, survey study was part of a longitudinal project and used data from the second wave. Data were collected in November/December 2020 among 510 children (Mage = 10.40; 53.72% girls). Findings showed that children who consumed more news during the pandemic avoided pandemic news less often. Children who experienced more anxiety-related behaviors regarding pandemic news avoided pandemic news more often. The relation between news consumption and emotional responses was stronger for children who experienced restrictive parental mediation more often, indicating that this was not an effective parental mediation strategy for tempering their emotional responses. Children with higher levels of emotional responses used reactive coping strategies more often. However, this did not seem to be an effective strategy against pandemic news avoidance because none of the strategies had a negative relation with pandemic news avoidance. Distancing was even positively related to pandemic news avoidance. Although the current study was not able to fully unravel how news avoidance-related constructs relate to one another, we were able to get some important insights guiding future research. Specifically, it is of crucial importance to unravel the mechanisms that increase the chance of children’s news avoidance and those that mitigate it, to build interventions to counteract news avoidance and to protect children from the negative emotional consequences by news consumption.

show abstract

Section: Parent and Child Mitigation Strategiessupporting

confidence: 83%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 73%

Section: Parental Mediation As Moderator Between News Consumption And...mentioning

confidence: 71%

Section: A Model Of News Avoidancementioning

confidence: 75%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Explaining Children’s News Avoidance During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Ebbinkhuijsen

Buijzen²,

Leeuw³

et al. 2022

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Parents' mental health problems may affect children's adjustment, mainly during such stressful events as the current pandemic (Courtney, 2020;Bıkmazer et al, 2020;Morelli et al, 2022). Since the end of December 2019, the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) has spread around the world, to the point of being defined as a pandemic (World Health Organization; WHO, 2020), which caused a high number of infections and deaths.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing parental distress and children’s difficulties between parents of children with rheumatic diseases and parents of healthy children in families facing the COVID-19 pandemic

et al. 2022

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The COVID-19 pandemic could be a threat for the health status of children with a chronic condition. The present study aimed to explore parents’ and children’s psychological adjustment during the current pandemic, pursuing a triple objective: to compare the psychological adjustment of parents of children with pediatric rheumatic diseases (PRDs) and parents of healthy children; to analyze children’s psychological symptoms (emotional problems and hyperactivity) before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, and with or without a PRDs diagnosis; to explore the associations of children’s emotional problems and hyperactivity with parents’ psychological adjustment, parent–child interactions and belonging or not to families with PRDs. This cross-sectional study involved 56 parents of children with PRDs and 53 parents of healthy children. Self-report questionnaires about parents’ depression, anxiety, parenting stress, and children’s emotional symptoms and hyperactivity-inattention were administered. No differences were detected on psychological adjustment between parents of children with PRDs and parents of healthy children. Parents of children with PRDs reported statistically significant higher levels of children’s emotional problems and hyperactivity before the pandemic, compared to parents of healthy children; during COVID-19 pandemic, emotional symptoms increased for both groups, while hyperactivity-inattention symptoms increased only in the group of healthy children. Children’s emotional difficulties were associated with higher levels of parental anxiety, worse parent–child interaction and having PRDs; children’s hyperactivity symptoms were related to parent–child difficult interaction and higher levels of parental depression. Findings suggest the importance to target the children in relation to their parents, when approaching the psychological aspects of PRDs.

show abstract