Child-parent relationship during the Wuhan COVID-19 lockdown: Role of changes in preschool children's daily routines.

ABSTRACT

Objective: We examined the impact of the strict lockdown on 130 preschool-age children's daily routines and how their routine changes from pre-lockdown were related to child-parent relationship quality during the lockdown. Background: To contain the spread of the COVID-19, the city of Wuhan underwent a strict 76-day lockdown, during which children's routines were drastically altered, yet families did not have a frame of reference to use to determine how changes in children's routines would be related to their family dynamics. Method: Parents provided survey data on the amount of time their children spent daily on learning, screen devices, play and exercise, and nighttime sleep before, during, and after the lockdown. The also described general family functioning, child-parent closeness, and child-parent conflict during the lockdown. Results: The lockdown led to changes in all four routines, but all returned to pre-lockdown level after the lockdown was lifted. Regression analyses showed that decrease in play and exercise time was related to less child-parent closeness, and decrease in learning time and increase in nighttime sleep time were related to more child-parent conflict. Conclusion: Findings suggested changes in the children's play and exercise time, learning time, and nighttime sleep time were related to negative child-parent relationship (i.e., less closeness or more conflict), but favorable general functioning was a protective factor. Implications Our study highlighted family resilience in restoring the children's routines after the lockdown, as well as family vulnerability during the lockdown, as changes in three of the four routines examined were linked to negative child-parent relationship.