Parenting Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Longitudinal Findings for Children’s Socio-emotional Functioning

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic presented a unique opportunity to investigate the longitudinal associations between parents’ pre-pandemic mental health issues and their emotion-related parenting practices during the pandemic, as well as the impact on children’s socio-emotional functioning. The present study aimed to: 1) investigate associations between pre-existing parent mental health issues (2019) with children’s long-term socio-emotional functioning (2021), via changes in emotion-related parenting practices during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020); and 2) test whether COVID-19 pandemic-related environmental stressors during 2020 and 2021 exacerbated associations between emotion-related parenting practices and children’s socio-emotional functioning. Data were drawn from the Child and Parent Emotion Study (CAPES). Parents of children aged 4–9 years (N = 1,046) completed online self-report surveys. A moderated mediation model was estimated via path analysis to test all aims, controlling for covariance. Parent mental health issues at Time 1 were associated with lower levels of emotion coaching practices at Time 2, and emotion dismissing practices at Time 2 were associated with higher levels of children’s parent-reported behavioral problems at Time 3. There was no evidence to support mediation effects or a moderating influence of cumulative COVID-19 stressors. The findings highlight the importance of providing parents with mental health support and encourage them to engage in emotion coaching practices. Moreover, parents who receive specific support related to their parenting practices may see improvements in their children’s externalizing behavior problems.