Parenting Hurdles Experienced During Lockdown in South Africa: Eclectic Contexts

Abstract

Unequivocally, South Africa, amid an environment of paucity of resources, faces the arduous challenge of fighting the scourge of coronavirus. This has necessitated assessing the parenting hurdles experienced during the lockdown in eclectic contexts in South Africa. This article applied a review of the literature methodology. The researchers drew their literature from journal articles, monographs, and book chapters and used informal conversations amid their intuitive and experiential powers. The article established that South African families face parenting hurdles driven by the COVID-19 lockdown due to the following factors: Children and their parents driven to a state of duress; children facing various kinds of mistreatment; pecuniary dimensions; lockdown presenting states of distress to people generally; and a surge of gender-based violence. This article recommends that social service professionals such as psychologists, counsellors, and social workers be on the frontline in discharging various psychotherapeutic education to the communities. These researchers also recommend that the government and other community development practitioners emphasize the application of the tenets of ubuntu as a conflict resolution tool to reduce conflicts and afford the children qualitative parenting. This research provides some interventions for handling parenting during any other disruptions, such as the coronavirus-imposed lockdown. Keywords: Parenting Hurdles, Lockdown, Coronavirus, Children, Ill-Treatment, Financial Factor