Distance Learning Among School-Aged Children Early in the Covid-19 Pandemic: Which Parent Helped More and Did It Matter?
By: Willow Weibel, Valerie Astorga
Department: Psychology
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Jeff Cookston
First, following evidence that mothers tend to be more involved in the instrumental care of children than fathers, we hypothesized that mothers would assume more responsibilities for distance learning than fathers. Second, following evidence that men tend to be more sensitive to disruptions in family norms than mothers (Cummings et al., 2010), we anticipated that shelter in place would be associated with fathers’ reporting more problems in children than mothers. Third, recognizing the stress on the family system provided by distance learning, we hypothesized that more children engaging in distance learning would be associated with more interparental conflict and less coparenting. Finally, because the early years in elementary school are primarily focused on socialization to the school environment, we hypothesized that younger children would be faring worse than older children in distance learning, and we further anticipated that the younger children within families with multiple children would be doing worse than their older siblings.