Exploring parental responses to social and safety needs of school-age children during COVID-19 pandemic in Ogun State, Nigeria

ABSTRACT

The corona virus has emerged as a dreaded disease globally, and it is no longer a news that the virus is a killer disease. It has paralyzed individual and nations’ economic activities due to the governments’ orders made to curtail its spread. Based on this, the researchers explored parental responses to social and safety needs of their school children during the pandemic in Ogun State, Nigeria. Four research questions were raised, and a questionnaire titled “COVID-19 Pandemic and Parental Response to School Children Survey” (online) was used to elicit data from 5,340 respondents. The data collected were analyzed using frequency count, simple percentage, mean, standard deviation, and Analysis of Variance. The findings revealed that the parental response to their children social needs was high, while their response to safety needs was low. Also, it was discovered that there was a significant influence between parental socioeconomic background and the needs of school-age children. It was therefore recommended that, parents must have intimate relationship with their children by meeting their needs, protecting them, and never allow communication gap between them and their children. The government also should assist parents in meeting the needs of the school-age children, especially in the time of crises or emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic.

KEYWORDS:

• Coronavirus disease 2019
• pandemic
• parental response
• social safety
• health safety
• school children