Role of maternal emotion in child maltreatment risk during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Purpose Preliminary research early in the COVID-19 pandemic suggested children appeared to be at increased risk for child maltreatment, particularly as parents struggled with mental health and economic strains. Such strains were likely to influence parental emotions about their children, affecting their parent-child interactions to contribute to elevated maltreatment risk. To identify the potential affective elements that may contribute to such increased maltreatment risk, the current study focused on whether maternal worry about children’s behavior specifically as well as maternal anger were related to increased risk for neglect or physical or psychological aggression six months into the pandemic. Method The racially diverse sample included 193 mothers who completed an online survey during the COVID-19 pandemic in late September-early October 2020. Results Mothers’ reported increases in neglect and physical and psychological aggression during the pandemic were significantly related with established measures of maltreatment risk. Furthermore, path models indicated that maternal anger and worry about children’s behavior, as well as their interaction, were significantly related to indicators of physical aggression risk and neglect during the pandemic, but only maternal anger related to increased psychological aggression during the pandemic. Conclusions Maternal worry and anger about children’s behavior may have exacerbated risk for maltreatment under the stressful conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings suggest affective reactions of both parental worry and anger focused on child behavior warrants greater empirical attention and consideration in intervention efforts both during the pandemic and potentially post-pandemic.

COVID-19 and Caregiver Risk Factors for Child Maltreatment: The Pandemic in Review

“…Mothers and married or cohabitating partners were the primary participants of these studies. Fourteen of the 26 articles included race-level data, 10 of which described samples in which participants identifying as White/Caucasian were the majority ( Brown et al, 2020 ; Connell & Strambler, 2021 ; Craig et al, 2021 ; Freisthler et al, 2021 ; Lawson et al, 2020 , Lee et al, 2021 ; Rodriguez et al, 2021 ; Rodriguez & Lee, 2022 ; Russell et al, 2020 ; Wolf et al, 2021 ). The three remaining studies included Asian American and Pacific Islander samples from the United States, and mostly Chinese samples from Singapore ( Chung et al, 2020 ) and China ( Freisthler et al, 2021 ).…”

“…Of note, Gadermann et al (2021) suggest that negative or poor mental health related to the pandemic may contribute to increased consumption of alcohol among parents. 1), multiple articles cited independent risk factors (Augusti et al, 2021;Bérubé et al, 2020;Lawson et al, 2020;Machlin et al, 2021;Russell et al, 2020;Rodriguez et al, 2021;Rodriguez & Lee, 2022;Yamaoka et al, 2021;Zafar et al, 2021). Yamaoka et al (2021) investigated four of these risk factors, including longer screen time, changes in child sleep patterns, child special needs, and going out for nonessential reasons.…”