Parenting under pressure: Parental transmission and buffering of child fear during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The current study investigated the impacts of parental behaviors (threat communication and comforting) on children's COVID-19 fears and whether effects differed by age. Caregivers of 283 children (5.5-17 years, M = 10.17, SD = 3.25) from 186 families completed online measures assessing children's and parents' COVID-19-related fears, children's sources of COVID-19 threat information, and parents' engagement in behaviors to reduce child distress (i.e., comfort behaviors). Higher COVID-19 fear in parents was associated with greater communication of COVID-19 threat information, which was associated with higher COVID-19 fear in younger, but not older, children. Over and above parental fear and threat communication, greater exposure to COVID-19 threat information from community sources (e.g., media, school, friends) was associated with greater COVID-19 fear in children, regardless of age. Greater engagement of parental comfort behaviors buffered the association between community sources of COVID-19 threat information and COVID-19 fears in older, but not younger, children. These findings suggest that younger children might be more vulnerable to developing heightened COVID-19 fears as a result of increasing sources of COVID-19 threat information in their lives. This study highlights the importance of supporting the socioemotional well-being of children and families through the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Parental Buffering of Stress in the Time of COVID-19: Family-Level Factors May Moderate the Association Between Pandemic-Related Stress and Youth Symptomatology.

Nearly all families in the United States were exposed to varying degrees of stress related to the COVID-19 pandemic during the spring of 2020. Building on previous research documenting the pernicious effects of stress on youth mental health, we aimed to test the effects of exposure to COVID-19-related stress on youth symptomatology. Further, in light of evidence suggesting that parents play an important role in buffering children from environmental stress, we assessed how specific parental behaviors (i.e., parental emotion socialization, maintenance of home routines, and availability to discuss the pandemic with child) contributed to effective parental buffering of the impact of pandemic-related stress on children's symptomatology. Conversely, we tested whether parental anxiety-related symptomatology and parenting stress exacerbated the effect of children's exposure to pandemic-related stress on children's symptomatology. Results suggest that parents who engaged in relatively higher levels of emotion coaching of children's negative emotions and who maintained more stable home routines during the pandemic were more effectively able to buffer the effects of pandemic-related stress on children's symptomatology. Parents who reported higher levels of parenting stress and anxiety-related symptomatology were less likely to effectively buffer stress. Though interpretation of the findings is limited due to sole reliance on parental report and the cross-sectional study design due to the constraints of collecting data during a global pandemic, findings underscore the importance of assessing family-level factors when considering the impact of stressors on children's symptomatology and highlight the need to support parents during global events that place families under significant stress.