Children's problems predicted parents' mental health via parental burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic in a sample of predominantly White, partnered mothers.
Lindsey C Partington, Meital Mashash, Paul D Hastings
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted families' daily lives, compromising parents', and children's well-being. From a family systems perspective, children's socioemotional difficulties may infiltrate family dynamics via increased parental burnout-a syndrome characterized by exhaustion, low self-fulfillment, and emotional distancing due to demanding childrearing-that potentially compromises a parent's mental health over time. We examined how changes in children's difficulties predicted parents' mental health via parental burnout during the first 1.5 years of the pandemic. Three hundred seventeen U.S. parents (93% mothers, 70% White, median income-per-capita: $31,250) with children ages 2-18 years (M = 7.26 years, SD = 4.08 years) participated in a three-wave, longitudinal study examining family adjustment. Parents reported on their mental health, parental burnout, and their children's difficulties. A linear latent growth curve model found significant variability in children's initial total difficulties score and significant decreases in children's difficulties over 1.5 years. In an indirect effects model, both children's high initial total difficulties and their increasing difficulties over the pandemic prospectively predicted greater parental burnout, which subsequently related to parents' greater mental health problems. Despite concerns surrounding children's adjustment, our findings suggest that children's socioemotional difficulties decreased as the pandemic continued for this sample of well-resourced families. However, parents of children who began the pandemic with many difficulties, or who had increasing difficulties, were susceptible to parental burnout and compromised mental health. Providing resources for parents of children with challenging behaviors early and throughout a health crisis may mitigate downstream impacts on parents' well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
期刊介绍：
Developmental Psychology ® publishes articles that significantly advance knowledge and theory about development across the life span. The journal focuses on seminal empirical contributions. The journal occasionally publishes exceptionally strong scholarly reviews and theoretical or methodological articles. Studies of any aspect of psychological development are appropriate, as are studies of the biological, social, and cultural factors that affect development. The journal welcomes not only laboratory-based experimental studies but studies employing other rigorous methodologies, such as ethnographies, field research, and secondary analyses of large data sets. We especially seek submissions in new areas of inquiry and submissions that will address contradictory findings or controversies in the field as well as the generalizability of extant findings in new populations. Although most articles in this journal address human development, studies of other species are appropriate if they have important implications for human development. Submissions can consist of single manuscripts, proposed sections, or short reports.
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