Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Dec;10(4):564-576.
doi: 10.1016/j.jarmac.2021.11.002. Epub 2021 Nov 23.

The Ecology of Youth Psychological Wellbeing in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Karen Salmon  1
Affiliations

The Ecology of Youth Psychological Wellbeing in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Karen Salmon. J Appl Res Mem Cogn. 2021 Dec.

Abstract

The consequences of profound disruption to everyday life caused by the COVID-19 pandemic will only emerge over time. Guided by ecological systems (Pitchik et al., 2021) and developmental psychopathology (Masten & Cicchetti, 2010) frameworks, I review evidence that points to parents at home with children as particularly vulnerable to increased psychological difficulties, particularly in contexts of poverty. Resultant compromised parenting may reduce children's opportunities for the kinds of everyday interactions that promote cognitive and socioemotional development and expose them to increases in coercive, avoidant, and other problematic caregiving behaviours. I discuss three evidence-based strategies that parents could adopt to buffer their child's mental health: building positive discipline strategies, talking with the child about the pandemic and its consequences, and conversing about the past. I conclude, however, that approaches to supporting parents and their children at this time must also address multisystem factors that compromise caregivers' ability to provide nurturing care.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; Caregiving behaviors; Ecological systems; Parent-child reminiscing; Positive discipline; Youth mental health.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Adapted model of factors that can influence the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the child (from Pitchik et al., 2021’s conceptual model, originally developed through the lens of the nurturing care framework).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Intervention possibilities to buffer child mental health (adapted from Masten & Motti-Stefanidi, 2020, Pitchik et al., 2021).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Achterberg M., Dobbelaar S., Boer O.D., Crone E.A. Perceived stress as mediator for longitudinal effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on wellbeing of parents and children. Scientific Reports. 2021;11 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Aknin L., De Neve J.E., Dunn E., Fancourt D., Goldberg E., Helliwell J.F., Jones S.P., Karam E., Layard R., Lyubomirsky S., Rzepa A., Saxena S., Thornton E.M., VanderWeele T.J., Whillans A.V., Zaki J., Karadag Caman O., Ben Amor Y. Mental health during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic: a review and recommendations for moving forward. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 2021 in press. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Aktar E., Majdandžić M., De Vente W., Bögels S.M. Parental social anxiety disorder prospectively predicts toddlers’ fear/avoidance in a social referencing paradigm. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 2014;55(1):77–87. - PubMed
    1. Alisic E., Boeije H.R., Jongmans M.J., Kleber R.J. Supporting children after single- incident trauma: Parents’ views. Clinical Pediatrics. 2012;51(3):274–282. - PubMed
    1. Alisic E., Gunaratnam S., Barrett A., Conroy R., Jowett H., Bressan S., Babl S., McClure F.E., Anderson R., Mehl M.R. Injury talk: Spontaneous parent–child conversations in the aftermath of a potentially traumatic event. Evidence-Based Mental Health. 2017;20(4):e19–e20. - PMC - PubMed