Parenting and Children’s Behavior During the COVID 19 Pandemic: Mother’s Perspective

Parenting and Children’s Behavior During the COVID 19 Pandemic: Mother’s Perspective. 

Published in Frontiers in Psychology

ISSN 1664-1078 (Online)

Publisher Frontiers Media S.A.

Country of publisher Switzerland

LCC subjects Philosophy. Psychology. 

Religion: Psychology

Website https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology

Research objective

The objective of the research was to describe three dimensions of perceived parenting (positive parenting, parenting stress, and parental school support) in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic among mothers in Argentina. Additionally, the study aimed to analyze changes perceived in children's behavior during social isolation and investigate how these changes varied based on dimensions of perceived parenting, as well as how perceived parenting dimensions varied with mothers' age, number of children, and number of work hours.

Research subject:

Mothers of school-aged children in Argentina.

Research time:

Conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically during social isolation phases.

Research location: 

Argentina.

Research reason:

To understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on parenting dimensions (positive parenting, parenting stress, parental school support) and children's behavior, and to identify factors influencing perceived parenting among mothers in Argentina.

Processing data and Research Methods :

Used questionnaires to collect sociodemographic, work-related data, and children's behavior perceptions.

• Employed descriptive statistics (measures of central tendency, frequencies, percentages) to describe sociodemographic and work-related variables.

• Used Mann Whitney’s U test to compare changes in children's behavior based on positive parenting, parenting stress, and school support.

• Conducted factorial MANOVA to analyze the influence of mothers' age, number of children, and work hours on perceived parenting dimensions.

Research Result:

 Parenting dimensions (positive parenting, parenting stress, and school support) significantly influenced perceived changes in children's behavior. Positive parenting was associated with more positive changes, while higher parenting stress was linked to more perceived problems in children's behavior. School support was correlated with better adaptation to online classes.

Conclusion: Mothers' age and number of children significantly affected parenting dimensions, particularly parenting stress and school support. Work hours did not show significant effects except in interaction with the number of children, specifically impacting parenting stress.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, parenting, positive parenting, parenting stress, parental school support, children's behavior, Argentina, sociodemographic factors, work-related factors, online classes, psychological wellbeing, preventive interventions.