Family Chaos Undermines and Family Cohesion Protects Children’s Health and Wellbeing during a COVID-19 Lockdown

• In Event: Family and child health and wellbeing during COVID-19: insights from New Zealand and Australia

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic poses an unparalleled threat to the health and wellbeing of children across the world, which hinges on how families respond to the pandemic. Homes characterized by inter-parental conflict, unresponsive parenting, chaos and low cohesion predict poorer child mental and physical health (e.g., Pinquart, 2017ab). The risk of these detrimental effects are greater when families face substantial stress that erodes parents’ ability to maintain a healthy home environment (Masarik, & Conger, 2017; Prime et al., 2020). Thus, sustaining cohesive home environments could not be more pressing as families across the world face the unprecedented stress of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The current research investigates the roles that cohesive and stable vs. chaotic and unpredictable home environments play in protecting vs. undermining children’s health and wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cohesive environments involve high levels of support and a sense of togetherness, connection, and being “in it” together (Moos & Moos, 1976). By contrast, chaotic home environments are characterized by high commotion, disorganization, and the absence of regular routines (Bronfrenbrenner & Morris, 2006; Fiese & Winder, 2010). Parents’ distress during crisis disrupts an array of parent-child and inter-parental processes that undermine the degree to which parents provide a coordinated and stable family environment. Thus, the range of disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns should culminate into less cohesive, more chaotic family environments that are detrimental to children’s health and wellbeing.

We tested the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on family environments and children’s health and wellbeing by leveraging an ongoing family study. Prior to the pandemic, both parents reported on family chaos (Matheny et al., 1995) and cohesion (Moos & Moos, 1981), and completed established assessments reporting on their own and their 4-5 year old child’s psychological and physical health (KIDSCREEN-27, Ravens-Sieberer et al., 2007; SDQ-SF, Goodman, 2001). Parents (N = 365 parents from 201 families) completed repeat assessments of these variables during a mandatory nationwide lockdown in which families were confined to the home for 5 weeks. These unique longitudinal data allowed us to test whether cohesive versus chaotic family environments predicted residual changes in children’s health and wellbeing.

Multilevel longitudinal analyses illustrated the importance of the family environment in determining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children. Greater family chaos and poorer family cohesion predicted residual decreases in children’s health and wellbeing. The predictive effects of the home environment were evident across both parents’ reports and independent of parents’ own wellbeing and health providing good evidence that these effects were not simply the result of more negative perceptions within the same informant or parents’ own distress. Children’s greater negative affective reactivity and poorer effortful control (reported by parents prior to the pandemic) also predicted residual decreases in child wellbeing and prosocial behavior, but the family environment effects were independent of the effects of child temperament. The results suggest that identifying ways to enhance family cohesion and reduce home chaos will promote resilience as families continue to face the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Authors

• Annette M. E. Henderson, University of Auckland
  Presenting Author

• Rachel S. T. Low, Auckland University of Technology
  Non-Presenting Author