How children coped in the first months of the pandemic lockdown: Free time, play, family togetherness, and helping out at home

ABSTRACT

During the first and second months after school lockdown in spring 2020, the author and others conducted surveys in the United States of children aged eight through thirteen and of parents with children the same ages. Contrary to many expectations, they found the children less anxious than they had been prior to the pandemic. The children were getting more sleep, were much more likely to report themselves as happy than sad, were using their free time to discover and engage in new, self-chosen activities, were helping out at home, were enjoying the extra time with their family, and were gaining new respect and appreciation from their parents. The author concludes that these findings, along with findings from other studies early in the pandemic, suggest an increased time for play, an increased opportunity to contribute constructively to family life, and an increased family togetherness improved the mental well-being of many children during at least the first months of the pandemic. He discusses these results in relation to Self-Determination Theory, which posits that psychological well-being depends upon satisfaction of basic needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, all of which may have been satisfied to a greater extent after lockdown than before. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)