Most parents say pandemic has had negative impact on child’s behaviour – survey

Most parents of young children feel the pandemic has had a negative impact on their child’s wellbeing and behaviour, a survey has suggested.

Public Health Scotland has released the results of the third round of its Covid-19 Early Years Resilience and Impact Survey (Ceyris), which monitors the impact of the pandemic on children.

A total of 5,895 responses were received from people who were parents or carers for children aged from 0 to 11, though the open nature of the survey meant participants were not representative of the overall population.

Across a range of measures, the impact of the pandemic was more acutely felt among families on lower incomes.

For 59% of children aged between three and 11, parents or carers reported the pandemic had negatively impacted their behaviour.

This rose to 67% for families on low incomes.

Meanwhile, 47% reported that the pandemic had a negative impact on their levels of physical activity, while 22% said it had a positive impact.

In the same age group, 76% said the pandemic had a negative impact on how much time their child spent with friends.

A similar trend was seen with children’s relationships with their extended family, with 68% saying the pandemic had reduced time spent with extended family members.

However, 49% reported that the pandemic had a positive impact on the quality of the child’s relationship with the parent or carer in their own household, while 18% said it had a negative impact.

Public Health Scotland said: “Overall, the findings suggest that for a substantial proportion of children in our sample, parents and carers perceive the pandemic to have had a negative impact on child and family health, wellbeing and development.

“The impacts generally appear to be felt to a greater extent in families from low income households, who may have already been struggling before the pandemic.”