Sibling conflict during COVID-19 in families with special educational needs and disabilities.

Umar Toseeb

doi:10.1111/bjep.12451

Abstract

Young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SENDs) and their families have been particularly hard hit by the COVID‐19 pandemic. In this longitudinal study, sibling conflict in these families during and after the first lockdown in the United Kingdom was investigated. Online questionnaires were completed by 504 parents of young people with SENDs at four time points between 23 March 2020 and 10 October 2020 (over half completed the questionnaire at multiple time points). As lockdown progressed, young people with SENDs were more likely to be picked on or hurt by their siblings compared with earlier stages of the lockdown but there was no change in how frequently they harmed or picked on their siblings. After lockdown, both perpetration and victimization decreased but not to the same rates as the first month of lockdown. Young people with SENDs with severe or complex needs were somewhat protected from sibling conflict. Findings are discussed with reference to implications for support and planning for future pandemics.

Highlights

Special educational needs and disabilities Young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SENDs) have impairments in functioning which might affect their ability to learn
Harsh parenting increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, which was likely a result of increased stressors experienced by parents (Lee & Ward, 2020)
The current study The current study investigated sibling conflict during and after the first COVID-19 lockdown in the United Kingdom in families where one child had a SEND

Summary

Introduction

Special educational needs and disabilities Young people with SENDs have impairments in functioning which might affect their ability to learn. Harsh parenting increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, which was likely a result of increased stressors experienced by parents (Lee & Ward, 2020) It seems pertinent, to investigate sibling conflict in young people with SENDs during the first COVID-19 lockdown, when routines and support networks were abruptly disrupted, and after, when they were beginning to be re-established. Harsh parenting is associated with higher levels of persistent sibling conflict (Toseeb, McChesney, Dantchev, et al, 2020) This may be because children are socialized by modelling parents’ behaviours (Bandura, 1977) and they use parent-child interactions as templates for interactions with their siblings (Bowlby, 1969). Such structural family and parenting characteristics are unlikely to operate in isolation

Objectives

Results

Conclusion