Parenting Stress During COVID-19 Lockdown: Correlates with Family and Child Factors

Abstract

In response to the COVID-19, a 76-day city-wide strict lockdown was imposed in Wuhan, China. This study aimed to document the family’s psychological status during the lockdown and test the role of family functioning, children’s mental health, child-parent relationship as well as parenting time during pandemic on parenting stress. The results showed that nearly 18% of the children exhibited clinical-level mental health problems. The children’s mental health and child-parent conflict fully mediated general family functioning’s impact on parenting stress. The change in childcaring time moderated the effect of the children’s mental health problems and child-parent conflict on parenting stress. Findings indicated that, during COVID-19 lockdown, children’s mental health and child-parent conflict contributed to parenting stress. More childrearing time would reduce the impact of children’s mental health on parenting stress.