Teaching Simple Strategies to Foster Emotional Well-Being.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented considerable disruptions to routines that have challenged emotional well-being for children and their caregivers. One direction for supporting emotional well-being includes strategies that help children feel their best in the moment, which can bolster their capacity to respond appropriately to thoughts and behaviors. Strengthening emotional well-being equitably, however, must include opportunities in settings that are easily accessible to all, such as schools. In this paper, we focus on simple, evidence-informed strategies that can be used in schools to promote positive feelings in the moment and build coping behaviors that facilitate tolerance of uncertainty. We focus on those strategies that educators can easily and routinely use across ages, stages, and activities. Selected strategies are primarily tied to cognitive behavioral theory, with our review broadly organized across categories of self-awareness, self-soothing, and social relationships. We review evidence for each, providing examples that illustrate ease of use in school settings.

Psychological distress and burden among family caregivers of children with and without developmental disabilities six months into the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created unique challenges for family caregivers of children with developmental disabilities (DD). The purpose of this study was to conduct a 6-month follow-up on the experiences of caregiver burden and psychological distress among caregivers of children with autism (ASD) and/or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) during COVID-19 pandemic, compare their experiences to caregivers of children without DD, and test the interaction between opportunities for self-care and caregiver burden and psychological distress. Results indicated caregivers of children with ASD/ADHD continued to report significantly higher levels of psychological distress and caregiver burden compared to caregivers of children without DD. Counter to study hypotheses decreased opportunities to engage in self-care as a result of the pandemic predicted higher levels of psychological distress and caregiver burden for caregivers of children without DD, whereas only caregiver burden was moderated by self-care for caregivers of children with ASD/ADHD. Overall, the COVID-19 pandemic is continuing to negatively impact the psychological health of family caregivers of school-age children. In general, greater challenges are presented for caregivers of children with ASD/ADHD, but they seem to be more resilient to some COVID-19 challenges than caregivers of children without DD.

Comparing the initial impact of COVID-19 on burden and psychological distress among family caregivers of children with and without developmental disabilities.

The current COVID-19 pandemic is presenting challenges for families (Cluver et al., The Lancet, 2020), which may be exacerbated for caregivers of children with developmental disabilities (DDs; Center on the Developing Child, Stress, hope, and the role of science: Responding to the coronavirus pandemic, 2020). The purpose of this study was to explore caregiver burden and psychological distress among caregivers of children with DD as compared to caregivers of typically developing children across the United States as a result of COVID-19. Between 2 weeks and 1 month following COVID-19-related school closures, a total of 460 caregivers from across the U.S. completed an online survey via Qualtrics; recruitment and initial survey completion occurred simultaneously. Of the total sample of eligible participants (N = 407), 225 were the primary caregiver of a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)/attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and 182 were the primary caregiver of a child without ASD/ADHD. Participants across groups indicated varying levels of exposure to COVID-19 and an impact of COVID-19 at the community and individual or family levels. However, caregivers of children with ASD/ADHD reported significantly higher levels of burden, depression, anxiety, and stress. Overall, findings are consistent with anecdotal and preliminary reports that all caregivers are experiencing COVID-19-related challenges, with caregivers of children with ASD/ADHD experiencing even greater challenges, particularly with regard to burden and psychological distress. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).