Abstract
This study reports on parental perceptions of changes and continuities in young children’s home-based daily activities during the initial COVID-19 quarantine in Greece. Daily activities present significant contexts for children’s learning and development and their continuity in periods of crisis is important for children’s psychological well-being. Existing research worldwide, underscores the changes occurring in families’ daily lives because of the pandemic- imposed restrictions, mostly focusing on their negative impact on family routines and functioning. On the other hand, continuities in children’s everyday activities during the quarantine have been less studied. 116 mothers and fathers, forming a convenience sample, reported on their children’s as well as their own engagement in daily activities with them, before and during the quarantine, using the CDA-PB scale. Results revealed changes in accordance with other research findings on this topic but also continuities in Greek families’ daily activities, which relate to parental values and already established family routines.
Highlights
In January 2020 the World Health Organization declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern regarding the COVID-19 virus outbreak, which soon afterwards evolved to a pandemic level, resulting to lockdowns around the world
This study reports on parental perceptions of changes and continuities in young children’s home-based daily activities during the initial COVID-19 quarantine in Greece
This study examined how families with young children in Greece adapted to the COVID-19 quarantine in the early days of the pandemic (April-May 2020) when very strict restrictions involving social distancing, school closure and working from home were imposed
Summary
In January 2020 the World Health Organization declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern regarding the COVID-19 virus outbreak, which soon afterwards evolved to a pandemic level, resulting to lockdowns around the world. Disruptions in family routines have been associated with the experience of worry, fear and uncertainty in both parents and children as well as with heightened distress, anxiety, depression and emotional fatigue in parents These add potential risk for parenting difficulties and the quality of parent-child relations and interactions, especially for families with lower socioeconomic background and pre-existing problems in family functioning (Ares et al, 2021; Brooks et al, 2020; Di Giorgio et al, 2020; Lee et al, 2021; Russell et al, 2020; Spinelli et al, 2020; Uzun et al, 2021; Wang et al, 2020). Such effects top up the consequences that school closure, home confinement and social distancing per se have on the quality of life and the psychological well-being of adolescents, school aged and preschool children (Di Giorgio et al, 2020; Jiao et al, 2020; Orgilés et al, 2020; Ravens-Sieberer et al, 2021)
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