Young children’s emotional stress reactions during the COVID-19 outbreak and their associations with parental emotion regulation and parental playfulness

ABSTRACT

Children’s emotional adjustment during stressogenic events is highly dependent on their parents’ emotional state. The present study explored young children’s emotional adjustment during the COVID19 outbreak as it relates to their exposure to stress, and their parents’ emotion regulation and playfulness. A sample of 351 Israeli parents of children aged 2–7 years completed online questionnaires. The most frequent stress symptoms in children were nervousness, agitation, and aggression, separation fears and clinging. Parental difficulties in emotion regulation, and the level of exposure to stressogenic situations were both significantly associated with children’s stress reactions. Parental emotion regulation fully mediated the relationship between exposure to stress and children’s stress reactions. Parental playfulness was only inversely related to children’s stress reaction in fathers. These findings underscore the importance of parental emotion skills for children's emotional adjustment during stressful times.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• parental emotion regulation
• parental playfulness
• stress reaction

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability

The data are available from the authors upon request.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maayan Shorer

Maayan Shorer is a clinical psychologist and a lecturer at the Department of Clinical Psychology, Ruppin Academic Center. She was the head of the PTSD and Selective Mutism Unit at Schneider Children’s Medical Center of Israel for over a decade. Her research interests include parental playfulness, parental emotion regulation, childhood PTSD, Selective Mutism and mild Traumatic Brain Injuries in children.

Liat Leibovich

Liat Leibovich is a clinical psychologist and supervisor at the ‘Ahava’ children’s home and in private practice, and a lecturer at the Department of Clinical Psychology, Ruppin Academic Center. Her research focuses on psychodynamic techniques and especially on the role of supportive techniques in enhancing the alliance. She has worked extensively on interpretive techniques in psychodynamic psychotherapy for depression.