Daily Parenting and Adolescent Maladjustment: A Two-Wave Multi-Informant Daily Diary Study Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic posed major challenges to parent-adolescent relationships under global stressors. Scant research has examined changes in the daily links between parenting behaviors and adolescent maladjustment before and after the onset of the pandemic. This study investigated the within-day associations between two parenting behaviors-positive parenting and psychological control-and three adolescent maladjustments-conduct problems, emotional problems, and negative affect-before and during COVID-19 through a two-wave multi-informant month-long daily diary study.

Methods: A total of 3041 daily observations from 30 parent-adolescent dyads collected in Canada (adolescents: M = 14.3, 39% female, 42% White; parents: M = 43.5, 72% female, 42% White) were assessed before (2019, n_observation = 778 and 772, for adolescents and parents, respectively) and during (2022, n_observation = 737 and 754) the pandemic.

Results: Positive parenting and conduct problems decreased, while emotional problems increased from before to during the COVID-19 pandemic. Multi-level modeling showed that positive parenting was negatively linked with conduct problems and negative affect on the same day, whereas psychological control was positively linked with conduct problems and negative affect on the same day. Based on adolescent-reports, the onset of the pandemic suppressed the negative relation between positive parenting and negative affect, and amplified the positive relation between psychological control and emotional problems.

Conclusions: These findings provide crucial evidence for changes in the daily links between parenting behaviors and adolescent maladjustment from before to during the pandemic. Family-based interventions should target daily parenting behaviors during periods of stress and uncertainty to promote adolescent adjustment.