Highlights 34.6% of parents said their child’s behavior had changed since the pandemic. Two out of five parents met criteria for depression or anxiety disorder. Parent depression and stress were negatively associated with home education. Parent anxiety and stress were positively associated with child anxiety. Parents were hugging/ showing affection to child more often during pandemic.

The Covid-19 pandemic upended the country, with enormous economic and social shifts. Given the increased contact from families living in virtual confinement coupled with massive economic disarray, the Covid-19 pandemic may have created the ideal conditions to witness a rise in children’s experience of abuse and neglect. Yet such a rise will be difficult to calculate given the drop in official mechanisms to track its incidence. The current investigation utilized two studies conducted early in the pandemic to evaluate maltreatment risk. In the first cross-sectional study, parents ( n = 405) reported increased physical and verbal conflict and neglect which were associated with their perceived stress and loneliness. In the second study, parents ( n = 106) enrolled in a longitudinal study reported increased parent-child conflict, which was associated with concurrent child abuse risk, with several links to employment loss, food insecurity, and loneliness; findings also demonstrated increases in abuse risk and psychological aggression relative to pre-pandemic levels. Findings are discussed in the context of a reactive welfare system rather than a pro-active public-health oriented approach to child maltreatment, connecting with families through multiple avenues. Innovative approaches will be needed to reach children faced with maltreatment to gauge its scope and impact in the pandemic’s aftermath.

On March 11, 2020, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. The social isolation and economic stress resulting from pandemic have the potential to exacerbate child abuse and neglect. This study examines the association of parents' perceived social isolation and recent employment loss to risk for child maltreatment (neglect, verbal aggression, and physical punishment) in the early weeks of the pandemic. Participants (N = 283) were adults living in the U.S. who were parents of at least one child 0-12 years of age. Participants completed an online survey approximately 2 weeks after the World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 was a pandemic. The survey asked about recent changes (i.e., in the past 2 weeks) to employment status, parenting behaviors, use of discipline, use of spanking, and depressive symptoms. Nearly 20% of parents had hit or spanked their child in the past two weeks alone. Parents' perceived social isolation and recent employment loss were associated with self-report of physical and emotional neglect and verbal aggression against the child, even after controlling for parental depressive symptoms, income, and sociodemographic factors. Parents' perceived social isolation was associated with parental report of changes in discipline, specifically, using discipline and spanking more often in the past 2 weeks. Associations were robust to analyses that included two variables that assessed days spent social distancing and days spent in "lockdown." Study results point to the need for mental health supports to parents and children to ameliorate the strain created by COVID-19. Keywords Coronavirus . Global health crisis . Child neglect . Physical abuse . Child abuse . Parent-child conflict tactics scales . Physical punishment . Spank . Discipline . Parental depression On March 11, 2020, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (World Health Organization, 2020a). On March 16, 2020, the U.S. White House issued social distancing guidelines which instructed Americans to stay home if they feel sick, to work or engage in school from home, and to avoid social gatherings of more than ten people (The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, 2020). The economic stress and social isolation created by societal responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have potential to exacerbate child abuse and neglect, via widely acknowledged mechanisms linked to child maltreatmentspecifically unemployment and economic strain, social isolation, and parental depression.By every measure, prior to the pandemic, child maltreatment was a major public health crisis in the U.

Robust research shows that parenting stress is associated with lower levels of parental sensitivity toward their children (i.e., parental responsiveness), thus negatively influencing child outcomes. While research supports these associations, most studies utilize self-report measures of parental responsiveness and exclude fathers. This study examines whether observed parental responsiveness mediates the relationship between parenting stress and child cognitive development, prosocial behavior, and behavior problems in a large sample of diverse lowincome families. Data were obtained from the Building Strong Families Project (N = 1,173). Dyadic bootstrapped mediation models were estimated in Mplus. For mothers and fathers, parenting stress was negatively associated with responsiveness (B = −0.08, 95% CI = [−0.14, −0.02], p = .012), and responsiveness was positively associated with child cognitive development (B = 0.15, 95% CI = [0.11, 0.19], p < .001) and child prosocial behavior (B = 0.12, 95% CI = [0.08, 0.15], p < .001). Mothers' responsiveness was negatively associated with child behavior problems (B = −0.07, 95% CI = [−0.13, −0.01], p = .020), but fathers' responsiveness was not (B = −0.01, 95% CI = [−0.06, 0.05], p = .814). For mothers and fathers, parenting stress was indirectly related to child cognitive development and prosocial behavior via responsiveness. Indirect effects were not found for mothers or fathers when predicting child behavior problems. To improve children's wellbeing, interventions may consider strengthening responsiveness and reducing parental stress among both mothers and fathers.

This study uses a risk and resilience framework to examine short-term self-reported changes in relationship conflict early in the COVID-19 pandemic (March and April 2020). Longitudinal data from U.S. adults in a romantic relationship ( N = 291) were collected via three waves of an online survey. Participants self-reported anxiety, depression, increased alcohol use, and dyadic coping since the pandemic. Relationship conflict variables included whether the participant reported that they and their partner “had disagreements related to the Coronavirus,” “had more disagreements than usual,” “had more verbal fights than usual,” and “had more physical fights than usual” in the past two weeks. Analyses controlled for sociodemographic characteristics as well as days spent in lockdown and employment change due to COVID-19. Results indicated that couples’ disagreement and verbal fighting scores increased from Time 1 to Time 2, but disagreements related to COVID-19 and physical fighting did not. Couples with higher levels of dyadic coping reported fewer fights and disagreements on average. However, dyadic coping did not buffer participants from increases in relationship conflict. Increased alcohol use since the pandemic was positively associated with disagreements related to COVID-19, disagreement scores, and verbal fighting scores. More days spent in lockdown was associated with increases in disagreements related to COVID-19. The conditions created by COVID-19 may contribute to worsening relationship conflict, even among couples who start with high levels of dyadic coping. Depression and alcohol use may contribute to poorer relationship quality during the pandemic. There is need for enhanced intervention and mental health supports to mitigate the potential effects of the pandemic on couples’ relationship functioning.

Background: Understanding factors that contribute to parents' use of physical and psychological parent-child aggression (PCA) is critical in efforts to mitigate child maltreatment. Objective: Extant research has not adequately distinguished risk factors that may differ by race. Participants and methods: The present study investigated potential racial differences in worry, approval of PCA, justification for PCA use, negative child intent attributions, and discrimination experiences in relation to child abuse risk and physical and psychological PCA use in a sample of 292 Black (44.9 %) and White mothers. Results: As hypothesized, compared to White mothers, Black mothers demonstrated higher child abuse risk and reported more PCA use, stronger approval for using PCA, and more justification of their PCA to teach children obedience. Although Black mothers reported more discipline-relevant worry as well as more experience of discrimination, White mothers' lower trait worry related to their greater approval of PCA for discipline, which indirectly related to their abuse risk. Contrary to expectations, perceptions of greater discrimination were related to White mothers' increased child abuse risk, approval of PCA, and justification for PCA because of anger and to teach obedience-findings not observed for Black mothers. Conclusions: The current results underscore the need for additional research on the role of discrimination and the cultural context of parenting and highlight the importance of explicitly testing racial differences to develop more culturally informed abuse prevention approaches.

Background: On March 11, 2020, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. The social isolation and economic stress resulting from pandemic have the potential to exacerbate child abuse and neglect. Objective: This study examines the association of parents’ perceived social isolation and recent employment loss to risk for child maltreatment (neglect, verbal aggression, and physical punishment) in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants and Setting: Participants (N = 283) were adults living in the U.S. who were parents of at least one child 0-12 years of age. Methods: Participants completed an online survey approximately 2 weeks after the World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 was a pandemic. The survey asked about recent changes (i.e., in the past 2 weeks) to employment status, parenting behaviors, use of discipline, use of spanking, and depressive symptoms. Results: Parents’ perceived social isolation and recent employment loss were associated with self-report of physical and emotional neglect and verbal aggression against the child, even after statistically controlling for parental depressive symptoms, income, and sociodemographic factors. Parents’ perceived social isolation was associated with parental report of changes in discipline, specifically, using discipline and spanking more often in the past 2 weeks. Associations were robust to analyses that included two variables that assessed days spent social distancing and days spent in “lockdown.” Conclusions: Study results point to the need for mental health supports to parents and children to ameliorate the strain created by COVID-19.

Forcibly displaced persons confront multiple stressors while awaiting permanent asylum or resettlement and often experience high levels of emotional distress. This study assessed an 8-week somatic-focused culturally adapted cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) group intervention with 39 female refugees from Afghanistan living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Twenty-nine participants were randomly assigned to treatment conditions, resulting in 20 participants in two separate treatment groups and 9 in a waitlist control group. An additional 10 participants were not randomly assigned and therefore were treated as an additional treatment group and analyzed separately. A three-group piecewise linear growth model was specified in Mplus using Bayesian estimation. Dependent variables included emotional distress, anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress, and social support. From baseline to posttreatment assessments, initial intervention participants experienced significant declines in emotional distress (b = -16.90, p < .001), anxiety (b = -.80, p < .001), depression (b = -.59, p < .001), and posttraumatic stress (b = -.24, p < .05). Gains were maintained three months posttreatment, with similar trends observed among nonrandomized participants. Subsequent to receiving treatment, the waitlist control participants also showed significant declines in emotional distress (b = -20.88, p < .001), anxiety (b = -1.10, p < .001), depression (b = -.79, p < .001), and posttraumatic stress scores (b = -.82, p < .001). Comparing the treatment groups to the waitlist control group revealed large effect sizes: Cohen's d was 2.14 for emotional distress, 2.31 for anxiety, 2.42 for depression, and 2.07 for posttraumatic stress. Relevant public health findings include low drop out, group format, and facilitation by a trained community member. (PsycINFO Database Record