Parents under Lockdown: the Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Families

Abstract

This paper explores aspects of parenting during COVID-19 lockdown, analyzing the international literature and presenting a study conducted in Italy during the initial period of social isolation (March-May 2020). The pandemic has made childcare challenging for parents globally, compromising the well-being and mental health of caregivers themselves (Brooks et al., 2020), and creating a potentially highly vulnerable situation for children (Gromada, Richardson, Rees, 2020). The COVID-19 emergency and the restrictions it has entailed bear short- and long-term implications for families, including the potential impact of delaying implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations, 2015) and increased risk of children witnessing or experiencing violence and abuse (End Violence Against Children, 2020). Given this background, we investigated the family ecosystem, exploring both individual and parental factors in parents’ relationships with their children, during lockdown.