“Why Can't I See My Friends and Family?”: Children's Questions and Parental Explanations About Coronavirus

Haber, Amanda S.; Kumar, Sona C.; Puttre, Hannah; Dashoush, Nermeen; Corriveau, Kathleen H.

doi:10.1111/mbe.12309

Cited by 12 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Another recent study by Haber et al (2022) examined how parents in the US explained the coronavirus to their 3-to 8-year-old children via an online survey. Parents also reported children's questions about the coronavirus.…”

Section: Children's Questions and Parent's Responsesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Children mostly rely on the information they receive from knowledgeable adults around them (i.e., parents, teachers) when learning about such processes (Harris, 2012;Harris & Koenig, 2006;Harris et al, 2018). The coronavirus also poses a challenging biological concept for children; it is transmitted from person to person via unobservable particles, has an incubation period, and leads to various symptoms (Haber et al, 2022). Thus, children need to solicit information from knowledgeable adults to understand the coronavirus's causes and consequences and learn how to protect themselves against the coronavirus.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Examining children's questions and parents' responses about COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey

Ünlütabak

Velioğlu

2022

Curr Psychol

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COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on both adults' and children's everyday lives. Conversations about biological processes such as viruses, illness, and health have started to occur more frequently in daily interactions. Although there are many guidelines for parents about how to talk to their children about the coronavirus, only a few studies have examined what children are curious about the coronavirus and how they make sense of the changes in their everyday lives. This study addresses this need by examining children's questions and parents' responses about the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Turkish sociocultural context. Using an online survey, we asked 184 parents of 3-to 12-year-olds to report their children's questions about coronavirus and their answers to these questions. We analyzed children's questions and parents' responses using qualitative and quantitative analyses (Menendez et al., 2021). Children's questions were mainly about the nature of the virus (34%), followed by lifestyle changes (20%). Older children were more likely to ask about school/work and less likely to ask about lifestyle changes than younger children. Parents responded to children's questions by providing realistic explanations (48%) and reassurance (20%). Only 18% of children's questions were explanation-seeking "why" and "how" questions. Parents were more likely to provide explanations if children's questions were explanation-seeking. Family activities such as playing games and cooking were the most common coping strategies reported by parents (69.2%). The findings have important implications for children's learning about the coronavirus and how adults can support children's learning and help them develop coping strategies in different sociocultural contexts.

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Section: Children's Questions and Parent's Responsesmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining children's questions and parents' responses about COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey

Ünlütabak

Velioğlu

2022

Curr Psychol

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“…Earlier studies also indicate that young children make sense of natural phenomena using magical or animistic thinking [ 55 , 56 ]. Prior studies of explanations regarding the Coronavirus show that parents report providing correct realistic responses to children’s questions in different cultural contexts [ 41 – 43 ]. Haber et al [ 41 ] also showed that parents of 3-5year-olds often reference germs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Interestingly, Turkish parents provide explanations to their children rather than leaving the questions unattended [ 43 ], while in about half of the cases parents in the US do not provide explanations [ 42 ]. The responses children receive are realistic but mostly very general [ 41 , 42 ]. If parents provide more specific responses, then parents of younger children will reference germs in their responses, while parents of older children will be more likely to use illness analogies in their explanations [ 41 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making sense of the pandemic: Parent-child conversations in two cultural contexts

2023

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The present study focused on parent-child conversations about COVID-19 related changes in children’s lives in Estonia and Germany with an aim to understand how children’s conceptual understanding of the disease and their emotional security is created and reflected in these interactions. Twenty-nine parent-child dyads from both cultural contexts provided self-recorded conversations. The conversations were analyzed for the type of explanations, emotional content, and valence. Estonian conversations were longer than those of German dyads. Explanatory talk appeared in both contexts but was general in nature. Conversations in both cultural contexts also included very few emotional references and tended to focus on both positive and negative aspects of the situation. The conversations show that parents tend to support children’s coping with stressful situations by helping them conceptually understand COVID-19 and paying little attention to children’s comprehension of feelings about the situation.

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“…The pandemic led children to ask questions to their parents about the virus, lifestyle changes including those related to schooling, and health and safety precautions. Research shows that parents provided informative answers to these questions (Menendez et al, 2021;Haber et al, 2022;Ünlütabak & Velioğlu, 2022).…”

Section: Children's Questions About the Covid-19 Pandemicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children’s Questions and Teachers’ Responses about the COVID-19 Pandemic in Turkey and the United States

Ünlütabak¹,

Hernandez²,

Velioglu³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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With the resumption of face-to-face classes in schools, children have begun to ask questions about the COVID-19 outbreak not only to parents but also to teachers. However, there has not been any research examining children’s questions and teachers’ responses about the Covid-19 pandemic. The study examined 3-12-year-old children’s questions and teachers’ responses about the Covid-19 pandemic in two sociocultural contexts: Turkey and the United States. A total of 119 teachers from Turkey and 95 teachers from the United States participated in the study. Teachers completed an online survey consisting of a demographic form and a questionnaire asking them to report three questions about Covid-19 asked by children in their classrooms and their responses to these questions. We analyzed children’s questions and teachers’ responses for their type and content. We also examined whether demographic factors were associated with children’s questions and teachers’ responses. Consistent with the literature, children in the Turkish sample asked fewer explanation-seeking (i.e., why/how) questions than children in the US sample. Children asked questions about virus and precautions to teachers and teachers responded to children’s questions realistically in both cultures. We discuss these findings in relation to similarities and differences across cultures in children’s question-asking behavior when acquiring knowledge.

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“Why Can't I See My Friends and Family?”: Children's Questions and Parental Explanations About Coronavirus

Cited by 12 publications

References 34 publications

Examining children's questions and parents' responses about COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey

Examining children's questions and parents' responses about COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey

Making sense of the pandemic: Parent-child conversations in two cultural contexts

Children’s Questions and Teachers’ Responses about the COVID-19 Pandemic in Turkey and the United States

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