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

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic involves stressful, ongoing challenges that pose an unparalleled threat to the health and wellbeing of families across the globe. Applying theory and research across the psychological and health sciences, the first talk presents an integrative model of how pandemic-related stress and pre-existing vulnerabilities combine to affect family risk and resilience processes during the pandemic. Key aspects of the model will be illustrated by drawing on family data collected during the pandemic, including examining family conflict and aggression. The second talk investigates whether parents’ distress during a nationwide lockdown predicts residual changes in indices of poor parenting and identifies within-family support processes that buffer these harmful effects. Accounting for pre-pandemic measures of parenting, parents’ distress predicted poorer parenting, but these detrimental effects were buffered by partner support and cooperative parenting. The third talk tests the effects of the family environment on child health and wellbeing during a nationwide lockdown. Leveraging an ongoing longitudinal study with pre-pandemic measures, greater family chaos and poorer family cohesion during a mandatory lockdown predicted residual decreases in children’s health and wellbeing. The final talk reports findings from a large longitudinal study investigating family functioning during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. This study examines how family relationships and children’s wellbeing have been affected across two waves of the pandemic. These talks confirm that the pandemic is having a significant impact on family and child wellbeing, and provide novel insights into key ways families may remain resilient and protect child health and wellbeing.

Sub Unit

• Solicited Content: COVID-19 Related

Chair

• Annette M. E. Henderson, University of Auckland

Individual Presentations

• Family Stress, Risk and Resilience during the COVID-19 Pandemic - Presenting Author: Nickola C. Overall, University of Auckland; Non-Presenting Author: Paula R. Pietromonaco, University of Massachusetts

• Distress and poor parenting during COVID-19: the buffering effects of partner support and cooperative coparenting - Presenting Author: Caitlin McRae, University of Auckland; Non-Presenting Author: Valerie T. Chang, University of Auckland

• Family Chaos Undermines and Family Cohesion Protects Children’s Health and Wellbeing during a COVID-19 Lockdown - Presenting Author: Annette M. E. Henderson, University of Auckland; Non-Presenting Author: Rachel S. T. Low, Auckland University of Technology

• COVID impacts on Australian families’ life and wellbeing: findings from the Families in Australia Survey - Presenting Author: Kelly Hand, Australian Institute of Family Studies; Non-Presenting Author: Jennifer Baxter, Australian Institute of Family Studies