Poster #97 - Financial Strain, Parental Wellbeing, and Children’s Sociobehavioral Health by Type of Schooling During COVID-19 Pandemic

• In Event: Poster Session 08

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic may hinder children’s sociobehavioral health by increasing family risks such as financial strain and parenting stress. Parents reported that managing children’s online schooling at home was one of the most challenging tasks (Sonnenschein et al., 2021). Online schooling during the pandemic required parents’ immediate adjustment. Parents with young children, especially, may have experienced high parenting stress since young children generally need greater care than older children. Promoting parents’ psychological wellbeing is an effective way to reduce the harmful effects of family hardships on children (Boe et al., 2014). Guided by family stress theory, we examined the link between financial strain and children’s sociobehavioral health, and the extent to which parenting stress and parental psychological well-being mediated that association for children who attended school online and in-person during the Covid-19 pandemic.
We used data from 414 parents with preschoolers collected via Amazon Mturk in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Children’s mean age was 3.51 years (SD= .94) and 56% were female. About half (51%) of them were European American, 26% were Native American or Alaska Native, 7% African American, 5% Latinx, and 4% Asian American. Most parents (Mother Mage=32.3yrs; Father Mage=35.1yrs) were married (95%) and 78% of the fathers and 74% of the mothers had a college or graduate degree. Also, 65% of the children attended online school. Parents assessed their current feelings of financial strain on a 5-point one-item scale (0=No strain; 5=A lot of strain). Parenting stress was measured using the Parental Stress Scale (Berry & Jones, 1995; 18 items; α= .84), and parent psychological wellbeing was measured using the 18-item version of the Psychological Wellbeing Scale (Ryff & Keyes, 1995; α=.86). Children’s sociobehavioral health was measured using the internalizing behavior (36 items; α=.96) and externalizing behavior (24 items; α=.90) subscales from Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2000).
Table 1 shows that parents whose children attended online schools reported greater financial strain and parenting stress and less psychological wellbeing than the parents whose children attended schools in-person. The children who attended online schools exhibited greater internalizing and externalizing behaviors than those who attended school in-person. We conducted multigroup path analyses to examine the variable associations by type of schooling attended (online or in-person). We controlled for children’s age, gender, ethnicity, and parents’ education. The multigroup model depicted in Figure 1 fits the data well (RMSEA=0, CFI=1, SRMR=0). A chi-square difference test revealed significant group differences by type of schooling (χ2(10)=20.97, p=.021). Parenting stress and psychological well-being successively mediated the association between financial hardship and children’s internalizing (b=.05, se=.02, p=.026) and externalizing behaviors (b=.04, se=.02, p=.030), but only for the children who attended school in-person. The association between financial strain and parenting stress was significantly stronger for the children who attended online schools relative to (χ2(9)=17.31, p=.043).
The discussion will highlight the mechanisms by which financial hardship during the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with children’s sociobehavioral outcomes, and how the mechanisms may vary based on whether the children were attending school virtually online or in-person.

Authors

• Seunghee Han, Hollins University
  Presenting Author

• Francisco Palermo, University of Missouri - Columbia

• Duane Rudy, University of Missouri - Columbia