The COVID-19 pandemic and associated public health measures have adversely affected the lives of people worldwide, raising concern over the pandemic's mental health consequences. Guided by a systemic model of family functioning during the COVID-19 pandemic (Prime et al., 2020), the current study aimed to examine how caregiver well-being (i.e., maternal depressive symptoms) and family organization (i.e., household chaos) are related to longitudinal trajectories of children's emotional and behavioral problems. Data were collected at four time points during and after home lockdown periods. Mothers of children (N = 230; 55% male) between the ages of two to five years were asked to complete questionnaires via an Israeli online research platform. Results indicated that emotional and behavioral problems, household chaos, and maternal depressive symptoms were the highest during the first lockdown assessment and dropped in the post-lockdown periods. Multilevel models further revealed that at the between-participants level, maternal depressive symptoms and household chaos positively predicted children's emotional and behavioral problems. At the within-participants level, household chaos fluctuations positively predicted fluctuations in child behavioral but not emotional problems. Our findings suggest that lockdowns have adverse effects on both maternal and child mental health. Screening for depressive symptoms among mothers of young children and maintaining household structure are important targets for future interventions to assist parents in navigating the multiple challenges brought upon by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Shared reality (SR) is the experience of having an inner state believed to be shared by others. Dyadic responsiveness has been suggested to be a critical process in SR construction. The present study tested the extent to which SR varies in the daily lives of romantic partners and whether this variability is related to responsiveness processes. We predicted that disclosure of personal events to one’s partner as well as perceived partner enacted responsiveness would be associated with daily levels of SR. We further predicted that these associations would be more pronounced when one has low epistemic certainty with respect to the disclosed event. To test these hypotheses, daily diaries were collected from 76 cohabiting romantic couples for a period of 4 weeks. Participants reported the occurrence of daily personal positive and negative events, indicated whether they had disclosed these events to their partner, and described how their partner had responded. As predicted, the disclosure of positive and negative events, as well as the perceptions of partners’ constructive responses to these disclosures, were positively associated with daily SR. A significant interaction was found between epistemic uncertainty (i.e., low perceived social consensus) and responsiveness processes in the context of negative (but not positive) events; specifically, when participants experienced low certainty, the disclosure of the event and the perceived partner’s constructive response were more strongly associated with SR.

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Objective The main goal of this study was to examine the interplay between individuals' attachment insecurity and their perceptions of their partners' COVID‐related behaviors (supportive and negative behaviors) in predicting their relationship satisfaction. Background Stress is a well‐documented risk factor for relationship satisfaction. COVID‐19 related stressors thus pose a challenge to maintaining relationship satisfaction. Although partners' supportive behaviors can play a central role in mitigating these stressors, enduring individual vulnerabilities, such as attachment insecurity, are likely to moderate the effectiveness of supportive (or negative) behaviors. Method In this two‐wave study, conducted at the start of the COVID‐19 pandemic in Israel, 239 participants in cohabiting Israeli couples reported their current relationship satisfaction and perceived partners' supportive and negative behaviors in response to COVID‐related stress. Participants' pre‐COVID reports of relationship satisfaction and attachment orientations were used to assess the extent to which partners' supportive/negative behaviors interacted with attachment orientations to predict relationship satisfaction maintenance during the first lockdown in Israel. Results Higher levels of support and lower levels of negative behaviors were associated with greater relationship satisfaction maintenance. Anxiously attached individuals showed greater sensitivity to their partners' support, whereas avoidantly attached individuals manifested lower reactivity to their partners' negative behaviors. Conclusions Perceived partners' supportive and negative behaviors can predict relationship satisfaction during stressful times. However, high attachment anxiety and low attachment avoidance may render individuals more sensitive to such behaviors. Implications The results suggest that during times of stress, it is essential to target partners with attachment insecurity to strengthen their supportive skills.

Study Objectives This study explored the links between mothers’ objective and subjective sleep and their caregiving feelings toward their infant (i.e., patience for the infant, desire to be with the infant, and anger toward the infant), using a diary study design. We were particularly interested in examining whether nights of lower sleep quality within individual mothers predict more negative maternal caregiving feelings the following day. Methods The sample included 151 women, who were recruited during pregnancy. Data were collected at 4 and 8 months after delivery. Maternal sleep was monitored at home for seven nights using actigraphy and sleep diaries. Mothers rated their caregiving feelings each evening. Results Multilevel modelling (controlling for depressive symptoms, feeding method, and background variables) revealed that actigraphic and subjective sleep variables were associated with maternal caregiving feeling, both at the between- and within- person levels. For example, lower sleep percent predicted reduced levels of maternal patience for the infant at 4 and 8 months (between-person effect). Moreover, when a mother had a lower sleep percent on a given night (compared to her average), she reported lower levels of patience for her infant the following day (within-person prospective effect). Conclusion The findings demonstrate, for the first time, that maternal nightly variations in objective and subjective sleep quality predict daily changes in maternal feelings toward her infant at two different assessment points. Improving maternal sleep quality might be an important target for future interventions which may help mothers to feel more positively toward their infant.