ABSTRACT
This study explored the profiles of Longitudinal Life Environmental Satisfaction (LLES) during the COVID-19 pandemic, evaluating their predicting role in social-emotional adjustment in children and early adolescents. 488 children (Mage = 8.54;SD = 0.63), and 129 early adolescents (Mage = 11.08, SD = 0.48) completed two questionnaires, pre-COVID-19 (T1) and in June 2021 (T2). Results showed two profiles, the risk profile characterized by a decrease in LLES and the second profile with stable, high levels of satisfaction. LLES profiles moderated the impact of time on children and adolescents' social-emotional adjustment. Specifically, children prosocial behaviour decreased in the risk profile, while independent participation remained stable. Self-efficacy decreased in both profiles for early adolescents, but only in the risk profile for children. Findings suggested that only children were able to benefit from systems wellbeing stability during the pandemic, improving their social-emotional adjustment. Findings supported the impact of the pandemic on social-emotional adjustment, especially for those who showed a disruption of systems satisfaction. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of European Journal of Developmental Psychology is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd 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.)
ABSTRACT
Adolescence is a prime developmental period to explore human-pet relationships, particularly given that teens are often relying less on their families, and more on other attachment figures such as peers and pets. However, most research on pet companionship is conducted with adults and young children. Moreover, lived experiences around having pets in households with adolescents are underexplored, particularly from parents' perspectives. This qualitative interview study of 31 parents/guardians in the Northeast U.S. explored perceptions of the benefits and challenges of having pets for their adolescent's well-being as well as how adolescents affected their pet's well-being. Our three main themes for perceived benefits of pets included social (e.g., reducing anxiety), physical (e.g., screen time companionship), and emotional (e.g., regulation of difficult emotions such as anger, loneliness). Challenges to adolescent well-being included such social topics as family tension around unevenly shared responsibilities, physical themes such as problematic animal behaviors, and emotional themes related to grieving the passing of pets. We offer a developmental systems approach to understanding pets within adolescent families, noting future directions for developing family interventions to improve pet-adolescent interactions given the demands of child and pet upbringing during adolescence.