Due to the COVID-19 outbreak in the Netherlands (March 2020) and the associated social distancing measures, families were enforced to stay at home as much as possible. Adolescents and their families may be particularly affected by this enforced proximity, as adolescents strive to become more independent. Yet, whether these measures impact emotional well-being in families with adolescents has not been examined. In this ecological momentary assessment study, we investigated if the COVID-19 pandemic affected positive and negative affect of parents and adolescents and parenting behaviors (warmth and criticism). Additionally, we examined possible explanations for the hypothesized changes in affect and parenting. To do so, we compared daily reports on affect and parenting that were gathered during two periods of 14 consecutive days, once before the COVID-19 pandemic (2018-2019) and once during the COVID-19 pandemic. Multilevel analyses showed that only parents' negative affect increased as compared to the period before the pandemic, whereas this was not the case for adolescents' negative affect, positive affect and parenting behaviors (from both the adolescent and parent perspective). In general, intolerance of uncertainty was linked to adolescents' and parents' negative affect and adolescents' positive affect. However, Intolerance of uncertainty, nor any pandemic related characteristics (i.e. living surface, income, relatives with COVID-19, hours of working at home, helping children with school and contact with COVID-19 patients at work) were linked to the increase of parents' negative affect during COVID-19. It can be concluded that on average, our sample (consisting of relatively healthy parents and adolescents) seems to deal fairly well with the circumstances. The substantial heterogeneity in the data however, also suggest that whether or not parents and adolescents experience (emotional) problems can vary from household to household. Implications for researchers, mental health care professionals and policy makers are discussed.

Intolerance of uncertainty is a key contributor to anxiety-related disorders. Recent studies highlight its importance in other clinical disorders. The link between its clinical presentation and the underlying neural correlates remains unclear. This review summarizes the emerging literature on the neural correlates of intolerance of uncertainty. In conclusion, studies focusing on the neural correlates of this construct are sparse, and findings are inconsistent across disorders. Future research should identify neural correlates of intolerance of uncertainty in more detail. This may unravel the neurobiology of a wide variety of clinical disorders and pave the way for novel therapeutic targets.

Adolescents can perceive parenting quite differently than parents themselves and these discrepancies may relate to adolescent well-being. The current study aimed to explore how adolescents and parents perceive daily parental warmth and criticism and whether these perceptions and discrepancies relate to adolescents’ daily positive and negative affect. The sample consisted of 80 adolescents (Mage = 15.9; 63.8% girls) and 151 parents (Mage = 49.4; 52.3% women) who completed four ecological momentary assessments per day for 14 consecutive days. In addition to adolescents’ perception, not parents’ perception by itself, but the extent to which this perception differed or overlapped with adolescents’ perception was related to adolescent affect. These findings highlight the importance of including combined adolescents’ and parents’ perspectives when studying dynamic parenting processes.

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