Date of Award

9-27-2023

Publication Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Department

Psychology

Keywords

COVID-19;Externalizing;Internalizing;Mobile Technology;Parent Stress;Parenting

Supervisor

Rosanne Menna

Rights

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

The current study examined the impact of parent stress and parent mobile technology use on parenting behaviours, as well as children’s internalizing and externalizing difficulties during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The objective of Part 1 of the study was to explore the associations between parent stress, technoference (interruptions in the parent-child dyad due to mobile technology), parenting behaviours, life changes due to COVID-19, and child internalizing and externalizing difficulties. A total of 224 participants, who were caregivers of children, aged 3 to 5 years old, completed online measures assessing parent stress, technoference, parenting behaviours, life changes due to COVID-19, and child internalizing and externalizing difficulties. Results of Part 1 of the study indicated that greater parent stress and technoference were both associated with greater negative parenting (i.e., hostile and physical control), which in turn, led to greater internalizing and externalizing difficulties in children. Greater parent stress was also associated with more technoference and negative parenting, which led to greater internalizing and externalizing difficulties in children. Further, Part 1 of the study included a content analysis of parents’ responses to structured questions explore their perceptions of stress during the COVID-19 pandemic, impact of mobile technology use on their parenting, and changes to child behaviour while parents used technology. Qualitative responses revealed how COVID-19 negatively impacted parent stress and parenting behaviours, contributed to increased technoference, and led to poor child outcomes. Responses also revealed that technoference was related to lower parenting quality and more disruptive child behaviour. Part 2 of the study included a subsample of participants who agreed to complete Time 2 (n = 157) and Time 3 (n = 111) of the study. The objective of Part 2 of the study was to explore how life changes due to COVID-19, parent stress, technoference, parenting behaviours, and child outcomes changed over a nine-month period. Participants were asked to complete a shortened online measure similar to the one they completed during Part 1 of the study. Results of Part 2 of the study indicated that the easing of pandemic restrictions was associated with subsequent decreases in parent stress, technoference, life changes due to COVID-19, and child externalizing difficulties. Physically controlling parenting and child internalizing difficulties remained elevated. Cross-lagged path models highlighted the temporal sequence amongst parent stress, technoference, negative parenting, COVID-19 life changes, and child internalizing and externalizing difficulties over time. Several transactional and bidirectional pathways revealed parent driven effects (i.e., parent technoference predicting more negative parenting) and child driven effects (i.e., child difficulties predicting greater parent stress) that contributed to a self- reinforcing cycle of risk factors for child internalizing and externalizing difficulties. Overall, findings from the current study demonstrated that parent stress, negative parenting, and technoference are cumulative risk factors for child socioemotional difficulties. The study highlights the important role of parents as either buffering or exacerbating these risk factors during a stressful disaster event, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Download

Share

COinS