The multiple roles of media use within the family system during lockdown: A thematic analysis of parental reports from the UK

Children's media use increased during the COVID‐19 lockdowns. Here, we present a thematic analysis of online survey responses from 69 parents (of children aged 0–11 years) who described their family media use after the first UK lockdown. Data highlight an increased reliance on media use driven by the challenges of managing time, work, leisure and social connection. Parents reported the additional work of regulating family media use amidst concerns about harmful effects. We draw on an ecological systems approach to discuss how the role of media in family functioning is determined by societal institutions and discourses around parenting and screens. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Children & Society is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Medical economic vulnerability: a next step in expanding the farm resilience scholarship.

In recent years, the long-standing questions of why, how, and which farm families continue farming in the face of ongoing changes have increasingly been studied through the resilience lens. While this body of work is providing updated and novel insights, two limitations, a focus on macro-level challenges faced by the farm operation and a mismatch between the scale of challenges and resilience measures, likely limit our understanding of the factors at play. We use the example of medical economic vulnerability, a micro-level challenge traditionally confined to the household sphere of the agri-family system, as a way to call attention to these limitations. Focusing on United States (U.S.) farm households, we assess: (1) To what extent are they experiencing medical economic vulnerability when using objective and subjective outcome measures? (2) Which demographic and farm characteristics are associated with experiencing medical economic vulnerability? (3) What is the association between institutional arrangements and medical economic vulnerability? Our analysis of over 900 surveys coupled with a conceptual framework merging complementary insights from three bodies of literature revealed seemingly large differences in the prevalence of medical economic vulnerability across the objective and subjective measures with the subjective measure indicating a general sentiment of medical economic vulnerability in a majority of respondents. Conversely, limited variations were noted in who experiences medical vulnerability on the basis of demographic and farm characteristics, with stronger associations being connected to the households' health insurance arrangements. We conclude with three implications of our findings for the farm resilience literature.

Rules, role models or overall climate at home? Relative associations of different family aspects with adolescents' problematic social media use

AimThis study aimed to enhance knowledge on which aspects of the family context are most relevant in identifying at-risk/problematic social media users among adolescents. Therefore, we examined the relative contribution to adolescents' at-risk/problematic social media use (SMU) of general and Internet-specific family factors related to three different family (sub)systems: parent-child (Internet-specific rule-setting, reactive restrictions towards Internet use, co-use, adolescents' involvement in rule-setting and positive parenting), parent (parental screen time, phubbing, stress, anxiety and depression) and family (family functioning, family intactness and SES) (sub)system.MethodsQuestionnaire data came from 403 adolescents (M = 13.51, SD = 2.15) and 396 parents (M = 46.59, SD = 5.29) who participated in wave 1 of the Dutch ‘Digital Family project’.ResultsLogistic regression analyses showed that only factors related to the parent-child subsystem remained significant in predicting being an at-risk/problematic social media user when examining predictors related to the parent-child, parent and family (sub)system simultaneously. Specifically, general and Internet-specific parenting practices contributed to the prediction above and beyond each other. Positive parenting and Internet-specific rule-setting seem protective, while parental reactive restrictions towards Internet use could be a risk factor. Positive parenting showed the largest effect size.ConclusionThe results suggest that parental behaviors directed towards the child should be a focus of attention in prevention of adolescents' problematic SMU. In addition, our findings highlight the importance of untangling restrictive mediation (impulsive, in the moment, attempts to limit SMU versus communicating clear rules in advance) when examining its effects.

Stay at Home Order—Psychological Stress in Children, Adolescents, and Parents during COVID-19 Quarantine—Data of the CoCo-Fakt Cohort Study, Cologne

Measures taken to contain the COVID-19 pandemic are particularly stressful for families. Limited data is available regarding the effects of a mandatory quarantine on the psychological stress of children, adolescents and their parents. Quarantined individuals participating in the online-based CoCo-Fakt study had at least one child <3, 3 to <6, 6 to <10, 10 to <14 and 14 to <16 years old (n = 2153). Parents were asked about how often their children felt nervous, anxious, or tense, down or depressed, lonely or physical reactions occur. A relative sum score characterizing psychosocial stress was determined and related to parents’ socio-demographic factors, psychosocial distress, coping strategies and resilience. Parents reported significantly higher psychological stress if at least one child was quarantined. Parents’ relative psychological stress sum score had the strongest influence on the psychological state of the children across all age groups (β = 0.315–0.457) besides male sex of the reporting parent, no partnership, low to medium socioeconomic status, lower resilience and coping scores, and parents quarantined as close contacts. The variance in the linear regression models was between 17.8% and 31.4%. These findings highlight that the entire family system must be considered during official mandatory quarantines.