key: cord-0900160-cqxmpxyq authors: Lee, Shawna J.; Ward, Kaitlin P.; Chang, Olivia D.; Downing, Kasey M. title: Parenting Activities and the Transition to Home-based Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic date: 2020-10-13 journal: Child Youth Serv Rev DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105585 sha: 34aac172d4378bb102ed7738b7df4772dcb6a3b6 doc_id: 900160 cord_uid: cqxmpxyq This study reports on parent-child dynamics following COVID-19 related school closures, based on cross-sectional analyses of a survey that utilized a convenience sampling approach. Data were collected approximately five weeks after the World Health Organization declared that the Coronavirus was a pandemic. Participants (N = 405) were adults recruited throughout the U.S. This study examines data from parents (69% mothers and 31% fathers) with at least one child 0-12 years of age. The majority were White (71%) and 41% had at least a bachelor’s degree. 78% of parents said they were educating their child at home due to COVID-19. Most (77.1%) reported use of online tools for at-home education, including educational apps, social media, and school-provided electronic resources. More than one-third (34.7%) of parents said their child’s behavior had changed since the pandemic, including being sad, depressed, and lonely. Most parents were spending more time involved in daily caregiving of their children since COVID-19. Two out of every five parents met the PHQ-8 criteria for major depression or severe major depression (40.0%) and the GAD-7 criteria for moderate or severe anxiety (39.9%). Multivariate analyses indicated that, compared to non-depressed parents, parents who met criteria for probable major or severe depression (B = -.16, 95% CI = [-.29, -.02], p = .021) and parenting stress (B = -.37, 95% CI = [-.47, -.27], p < .001) were negatively associated with parents’ perceived preparation to educate at home. Compared to parents with minimal or mild anxiety, parents with moderate or severe anxiety reported higher child anxiety scores (B = .17, 95% CI = [.06, .28], p = .002). Parenting stress was also positively associated with higher child anxiety scores (B = .40, 95% CI = [.32, .48], p < .001). Content analyses of open-ended questions indicated that school closures were a significant disruption, followed by lack of physical activity, and social isolation. Overall, study results suggested that parents’ mental health may be an important factor linked to at-home education and child wellbeing during the pandemic. experienced declines in academic achievement, and many families relocated to other states, in part to obtain better educational opportunities for their children (Peek & Richardson, 2010) . During previous global health crises, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and influenza A (H1N1), research documented issues related to school closures such as conflicts between parental work responsibilities and child care needs, lack of effective communication between parents and schools, and a lack of inclusive procedures to provide students access to needed resources and services (Boon et al., 2011; Braunack-Mayer et al., 2013; O'Sullivan et al., 2009 ). Past public health emergencies and natural disasters underscore the potential for a number of challenges for parents' ability to support their children's schooling during COVID-19. The widespread shift from in-person education to at-home education is unprecedented in recent American history. During COVID-19, school closures were estimated to have impacted approximately 55.1 million students in 124,000 public and private schools across the U.S. (Education Week, 2020) . Worldwide, the United Nations estimated that about 463 million children were cut off from educational altogether, due to their inability to access remote learning (United Nation's Children's Fund, 2020) . In addition, in the U.S., most after-school activities (e.g., school-based after school care, sports, clubs and other extracurricular activities) and specialized programs (e.g., services provided to children with developmental disabilities) were cancelled or significantly disrupted. Homeschooling is the provision of educational activities in the home, usually by the child's parent. Homeschooling is not new in the U.S., and reflects a small portion of education delivery for American children. Prior to COVID-19, approximately 1.7 million U.S. children were homeschooled. Homeschooling was on the rise, from 1.7% of all U.S. students between the ages of 5 and 17 in 1999, to 3 .3% of all U.S. students between the ages of 5 and 17 in 2016 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2019) . Homeschooling appears to be more common among religious parents, politically conservative parents, two-parent families, and rural families (Lines, 2001; Hartman, Stotts, Ottley, & Miller, 2017) . Homeschooling parents use a variety of tools, and one study indicated that 41% of parents use online education for homeschooling (Davis, 2011) . There is little research on the outcomes of children who are homeschooled. One study suggested that children who are homeschooled score above or at grade level (Lines, 2001) . In this study, we distinguish homeschooling, a deliberate decision by the parent to deliver an educational curriculum in a home-based setting, with the situation immediately following COVID-19, in which educational activities were delivered by or supervised by the parent at home because of the suspension of in-person educational activities and the closure of school buildings. With in-person educational activities disrupted, many schools turned to resources and strategies that are used by homeschooling parents. For example, schools used online resources to facilitate the delivery of educational activities at home. However, initially after COVID-19, most schools made the transition with little to no preparation, and solutions were spotty at best (Nuñez, Stuart-Cassel, & Temkin, 2020 ). Many families were not able to adequately access online education due to numerous factors. One report documented that 14.5 million U.S. households do not have access to the internet or personal computers; thus, online education is not a readily available option for children in these households (Institute for Children, Poverty, & Homelessness, 2020) . Not all households that lack internet access are those in rural areas. Children who are homeless or socioeconomically disadvantaged may lack reliable access to the internet or electronic tools (computer and tablets), and thus may not be able to fully participate in online education. In New York City, one region hit particularly hard by COVID-19, as many as 300,000 students did not have internet-connected devices at home (Institute for Children, Poverty, & Homelessness, 2020) . To the best of our knowledge, to date there are no national estimates of how many parents were able to use online resources to provide at-home education for their children during the time period examined in the current study (April 2020). In addition to challenges related to accessing online educational resources, another challenge in the shift to at-home education is the considerable burden that is placed on parents. At a minimum, at-home education requires parental supervision at times when children would have otherwise been supervised by school personnel in school buildings. In many cases, at-home education necessitates greater involvement and support from parents to ensure that children understand and complete educational activities. This may be especially true for parents of young children and children with disabilities. Parents in single-parent headed households, which comprise 11 million American families with children under 18 years old (U.S. Department of Labor, 2017), likely face even more difficult conditions as they struggle to balance work, child care and homeschooling during the pandemic, without the benefit of a second parent to "tag team" responsibilities. This raises the question of how parents, most of whom work in order to provide for their families, have adjusted to supervising at-home education. In addition to the challenges of balancing work responsibilities with at-home education and child care, most parents were not educators. Lack of preparation and lack of skill set, as well as mental health concerns, worries, and parenting stress, are factors that may impede parents' ability to support their children's educational needs. During COVID-19, parents in particular were reporting significantly greater levels of stress when compared to adults without children (APA, 2020) and parents were reporting worsening mental health overall (Patrick et al., 2020) . More than 7 in 10 parents reported that managing distance/online learning for their children and routine disruptions/adjusting to new routines were a significant source of stress (APA, 2020). A high level of food insecurity, loss of health insurance, and child care disruptions are common stressors that are impacting parental wellbeing during the pandemic (Patrick et al., 2020) . There is relatively little data on the mental health of children during the pandemic (Lee, 2020) . One study noted that parents were reporting worsening behavioral health for their children (Patrick et al., 2020) . The lack of in-person school activities has disrupted children's access to caring adults such as teachers, coaches, and school social workers (Sacks & Jones, 2020) and has consequences for children's wellbeing. Given the extent of these disruptions, it is reasonable to anticipate that millions of children will suffer elevated anxiety, worries, and trauma, depending on their ability to understand and comprehend the changes around them. The worsening of parental mental health (APA, 2020; Patrick et al., 2020) -such as increased levels of depression and anxiety -are likely to have negative consequences for child wellbeing. This study captures a snapshot of parent-child activities and wellbeing in the first six weeks after the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that COVID-19 was a pandemic (WHO, 2020a; WHO, 2020b) . We examine a variety of factors related to parent-child interactions during the pandemic. We describe parents' involvement with their children in daily caregiving activities, parents' daily schedule disruptions, and the types of resources parents were using to provide at-home education to their children. In multivariate models, we examine parenting risk factors associated with parents' perceived preparation to provide education athome. We also examine how parental wellbeing may influence parents' perception of their children's anxiety. We present qualitative analyses using thematic content coding to examine parents' responses to open-ended questions about common daily disruptions, the use of technology for children's education, parents' perceived changes in child behavior, and parents' perceptions of what children need during the pandemic. Data for the current study were collected via an online survey that was administered through Prolific, a company that conducts survey research. The survey was launched on April 2, 2020, nearly five weeks after the WHO declared that the coronavirus was a pandemic, and four weeks after the White House issued social distancing guidelines to slow the spread of COVID-19. Survey participants were recruited from geographic locations throughout the U.S.; however, it is important to note that the survey procedures utilized a convenience sampling approach and the sample is not nationally representative. Participants who met study criteria were sent an email from Prolific regarding their eligibility to participate in the survey. Participants were provided with a brief description of the survey via the Prolific website. In order to be eligible, individuals had to have U.S. nationality and be age 18 or older. If they chose to participate in the survey, they were linked through the Prolific platform to a Qualtrics survey designed and managed by the research team. The research team set a predetermined target enrollment number, and when that number was reached, the survey automatically closed. We do not have information on individuals who might have viewed the study details on the Prolific platform but decided not to participate, or on individuals who decided to participate after enrollment for the survey was already closed. It took less than 24 hours for the survey to reach its target enrollment number. After reviewing the study information and providing informed consent, participants completed the online survey and received $6.00 in payment, which was administered directly to participants via Prolific. The average completion time was 40 minutes long (range: 13 to 147 minutes). To ensure the quality of the data, three attention checks were embedded throughout the survey. None of the participants failed more than one of the attention checks. All data provided to the research team were anonymous and contained no identifying information. This study was reviewed and deemed exempt from oversight by the University of Michigan Institutional Review Board. A total of 654 adults residing in the U.S. completed the survey. The analytic sample for the current study included parents with at least one child living at home between the ages of 0-12 years (N = 405, or 61.9% of the total sample), of which 69% were mothers and 31% were fathers. 78% of participants said they were currently educating their child at home due to COVID-19. As seen in Table 1 , the average age was 34 years. Approximately 41% of participants had at least a bachelor's degree and the majority of participants identified as White (71%). Average household income in the prior year was between $40,000 and $50,000. Approximately 24% of participants indicated their employment status had changed due to COVID-19. Parental Perceived Preparation to Educate at Home. Three items assessed parents' perceived feelings of preparation to educate their children at home. Items were only given to parents who indicated they were currently educating their child(ren) at home (n = 315). Items included, "I feel prepared to educate my child at home," "I do not have the resources I need to education my child at home" (reversed), and "I have felt overwhelmed by responsibilities to educate by child at home" (reversed), which were rated on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The internal reliability of the scale was good (⍺ = .82). Participants who did not wish to respond typed "No response" or left the text box blank. Resources to educate at home were measured by asking parents to indicate how much they agreed with three statements: "I have support from my child's school to educate my child at home," "I have collaborated with other parents to provide resources for educating my child at home," and "I have used online or social media resources to educate my child at home" (1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree). These questions were only given to parents who indicated they were currently educating their child(ren) at home (n = 315). Parents' use of technology for child education and entertainment was assessed using an open-ended question, "What online resources have been the most helpful in educating your child at home?" In a text box below the question, participants provided words or phrases to respond. Participants who did not wish to respond typed "No response" or left the text box blank. Child Anxiety. Child anxiety was measured using the child anxiety subscale of the Child Behavior Checklist/4-18 (Achenbach, 1992) . Participants were asked, "Since approximately 2 weeks ago, my child(ren):" and were presented with 14 items that were rated on a 3-point scale (0=not true, 1=true, 2=often true). Sample items include, "(he/she) worries," "is too fearful or anxious," and "is nervous, high strung, or tense." Items were averaged to create a scale which demonstrated good internal consistency (⍺ = .87). Parents were asked, "In your opinion, has your child(ren)'s behavior changed in the past 2 weeks, during the Coronavirus/ Covid19 global health crisis?" Those who responded "yes" (n = 140; 34.7%) to this question were subsequently asked to provide responses to an open-ended question that examined parents' perceived changes in their child's behavior, "How has your child(ren)'s behavior changed in the past 2 weeks, since the Coronavirus/COVID-19 global health crisis?" In a text box below the question, participants provided words or phrases to respond. Participants who did not wish to respond typed "No response" or left the text box blank. asked an open-ended question, "What do you think your child(ren) need during this global health crisis?" Participants provided words or phrases to describe their response in a text box below the question. Participants who did not wish to respond typed "No response" or left the text box blank. Questionnaire (PHQ-8; Kroenke et al., 2008) . The PHQ-8 is a valid diagnostic tool to measure severity of depressive disorders in the general population. Participants were asked, "Over the last 2 weeks, how often have you been bothered by any of the following problems?" Sample items include, "Little interest or pleasure in doing things," "Feeling down, depressed, or hopeless," and "Feeling tired or having little energy." Items were assessed on a 4-point response scale from 0 = not at all, 1 = several days, 2 = more than half the days, and 3 = nearly every day, resulting in a score range from 0-24. A score of 9 or under indicates the participant is not depressed; a score between 10-19 indicates the participant has probable major depression; and a score between 20-24 indicates the participant has probable severe major depression. We created a dichotomous variable to reflect whether the participant met the PHQ-8 criteria for major depression or severe major depression, in which scores of 9 or less were coded "0" and scores of 10 or above were coded "1" (0=not depressed, 1=probable major depression or severe major depression). Parental Anxiety. Anxiety was measured using the Generalized Anxiety Disorder, 7item scale (GAD-7; Spitzer, Kroenke, Williams, & Lowe, 2006) . The GAD-7 is a widely used and well validated diagnostic tool to measure anxiety symptoms in the general population. Participants were asked, "Over the last 2 weeks, how often have you been bothered by the following problems?" Sample items include, "Feeling nervous, anxious, or on-edge," "not being able to stop or control worrying," and "trouble relaxing. Items were assessed on a 4-point response scale from 0 = not at all, 1 = several days, 2 = more than half the days, and 3 = nearly every day, resulting in a score range from 0-21. A score of 4 or under indicates the participant has minimal anxiety; a score between 5-9 indicates the participant has probable mild anxiety; a score between 10-14 indicates the participant has probable moderate anxiety; and a score between 15-21 indicates the participant has probable severe anxiety. We created a dichotomous variable to reflect whether the participant met the GAD-7 criteria for moderate or severe anxiety, in which scores of 9 or less were coded "0" and scores of 10 or above were coded "1" (0=minimal or mild anxiety, 1=moderate or severe anxiety). Parenting Stress. Parenting stress was measured by the four-item Aggravation in Parenting Scale ( that was utilized in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS). This measure has been widely used as a benchmark measure of child and family wellbeing (Ehrle & Moore, 1997) including in the Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (Hofferth, Davis-Kean, Davis, & Finkelstein, 1997) . Parents were asked whether they: 1) felt that their child(ren) are harder to care for than most children, 2) felt that there are things that their child(ren) do that bother them a lot, 3) find themselves giving up more of their lives to meet their children's needs than they ever expected, and 4) felt angry with their child(ren) on a scale from 1 (never true) to 4 (always true). The internal consistency of the scale in our sample was good (⍺ = .83). . Total household income in the last year before taxes was treated as a continuous variable: 1=$10-20k, 2=$20-30k, 3=$30-40k, 4=$40-50k, 5=$50-70k, 6=$70-90k, 7=$90k or more. Parent age was continuous and measured in years. The number of days spent social distancing and number of days spent in "lockdown" were continuous. We measured these factors to control for social isolation that may impact both the independent and dependent variables in the study models. A dichotomous variable indicated whether participants had experienced an employment change due to COVID-19: "Has your employment status changed (e.g., laid off, furloughed) because of the Coronavirus/COVID-19 global health crisis?" (0=no, 1=yes). Our analyses included quantitative analysis of close-ended questions and qualitative analysis (content coding) of open-ended questions. For quantitative analyses, data cleaning and descriptive analyses were run in Stata version 15.1. All regression analyses were run in Mplus version 8 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998 using the maximum likelihood estimator. For descriptives of parental involvement in child caregiving activities and daily schedule disruptions, parents who answered "NA/I don't engage in this behavior" were coded as missing so that we could examine the percentage of parents who engaged in these behaviors more often than they normally do. For parental at-home education resources, rated from 1 to 5, we calculated the percentage of parents who indicated they "agreed" or "strongly agreed" (i.e., rated a 4 or 5). Missing data on our key independent variables of interest-including depression, anxiety, and parenting stress-were <3%. Regarding our key dependent variables, because the home preparation items were only presented to parents who were educating their children from home (n = 315), the home preparation had 22.2% missing data (notably, for the 315 parents who were given this question, there were no missing data). Child anxiety did not have any missing data. To handle missing data, analyses were conducted using full-information maximum likelihood estimation (FIML), which uses all available data. To examine whether our independent variables were associated with missingness on the home preparation scale, we ran a logistic regression analysis where all of our independent variables predicted whether participants were missing data (0=not missing, 1=missing) on the home preparation scale. The only variable that predicted missingness on the home preparation scale was parental age (Odds Ratio: 0.92, SE = .02, p < .001). compare responses, thus establishing inter-rater reliability. Overall, inter-rater reliability was good, and ranged from 80% to 95%. Descriptive Results. Descriptive statistics of participant characteristics can be found in Table 1 . Notably, 40.0% of the parents in this sample met the PHQ-8 cutoff score for major depression, and 39.9% met the GAD-7 cutoff score for moderate or severe anxiety. More than one-third (34.7%) of parents said their child's behavior had changed since the pandemic. Descriptive results for changes in parental involvement in caregiving after COVID-19, daily schedule disruptions, and resources to educate at home are presented in Table 2 . In terms of parental involvement, parents said that they were engaging in most caregiving activities more often since COVID-19, specifically parents were playing games with child(ren) more often (68.7%), watching TV or other media with child(ren) more often (65.1%); and playing with toys with child(ren) more often (56.9%). Regarding daily schedule disruptions, 97.1% of parents indicated public schools were closed and over half of parents who typically utilize free/reduced meal services indicated they were unable to receive free or reduced cost breakfast or lunch. The questions related to parental at-home education resources were asked of the 78% of participants who said they were educating their child at home. The majority of these parents endorsed that they were using online or social media resources to educate their child(ren) at home (77.1%) and agreed they had support from their child(ren)'s school to educate their child(ren) at home (71.3%). However, only 22.5% had collaborated with other parents to provide resources to educate their child(ren) at home. Multivariate Results (Table 3) . Compared to non-depressed parents, parents who met the PHQ-8 criteria for probable major depression or major severe depression reported that they were less prepared to provide at-home education their child(ren) (B = -.16, 95% CI = [-.29, -.02], p = .021). In other words, compared to being a non-depressed parent, being a parent who met criteria for major depression was associated with a .16 standard deviation decrease in at-home education preparation score. Parents with mild or minimal anxiety did not differ from parents with moderate or severe anxiety in their preparation to conduct at-home education for their child(ren) (B = .06, 95% CI = [-.07, .19], p = .380). Parenting stress was negatively associated with parents' at-home education preparation (B = -.37, 95% CI = [-.47, -.27], p < .001)-in other words, a one standard deviation increase in parenting stress score was associated with a .37 standard deviation decrease in the at-home education preparation score. In addition to these parenting risk factors, the results indicated that parents' report of an employment change (i.e., job loss) in the past 2 weeks was not associated with parents' perceived preparation to provide at-home education in any of the models. In fact, it seems that parental mental health factors were the only statistically significant predictor of parents' perceived preparation to provide at-home education to their children following COVID-19. As a robustness check, we ran these models again, but only among parents who stated they were currently homeschooling their children (n = 315). Standardized coefficients and p-values were all unchanged. In analyses examining the predictors of child anxiety scores following COVID-19, nondepressed parents did not differ from parents with major depression in reporting child anxiety about other disruptions to your child's schedule because of the Coronavirus/ COVID-19 global health crisis"; 2) "What online resources have been the most helpful in educating your child at home?"; 3) "How has your child(ren)'s behavior changed in the past 2 weeks, since the Coronavirus/COVID-19 global health crisis?"; and 4) "What do you think your child(ren) need during this global health crisis?" are presented in Tables 4, 5 With regard to daily schedule disruptions due to COVID-19, school and/or daycare closure and lack of physical activity emerged as the most consistent disruptions reported by parents (28.3%). This is consistent with the close-ended questions which showed that the majority of parents reported school closures. Another prominent disruption that parents noted was social isolation from generalized others and relatives (245.7% and 24.8%, respectively). Additionally, 7.5% of parents reported a disruption in their child's basic routine (e.g., changes to eating and sleeping patterns). Although reported relatively infrequently, it is worth noting that 4.0% of children experienced a schedule disruption due to an inability to obtain their usual special education resources, and 4.9% of parents reported canceled doctor appointments as an important daily schedule disruption to their child. With regard to the use of technology for child education during COVID-19, we asked parents to tell us about the online tools that they were using to support at-home educational activities. Programs such as ABC Mouse and Khan Academy ranked as the most commonly reported tools parents were using to support at-home education. Approximately 59.9% of participants to this question indicated some form of online educational tool. Furthermore, schoolbased technological resources were common, and 28.5% of participants generated a tool that was school-based. School-based tools were provided by the school, and were differentiated from standalone online tools such as ABC Mouse and Khan Academy (prior category) that were used to supplement classroom based activities but are not generated by the school setting. The school based programs included SeeSaw and Google Classroom, and school-based websites. About 26.1% of parents reported using social media (e.g., YouTube, Facebook mom groups) to supplement their child's at-home education. Only about 7.0% of parents reported utilizing live remote technological resources (e.g., Zoom, online meetings) to educate their children. About 7.4% of parents reported lack of use of online resources to educate their child at home or they included resources that the researchers determined were outside of other coding categories, such as amazon.com. With regard to parents' perceived changes in child behavior during COVID-19, increased externalizing problems was the most common behavior change reported by parents (48.4%). Following externalizing problems, parents reported increased internalizing problems, namely, anxious and depressive symptoms (27.8% and 18.3%, respectively). Additionally, 15.1% of parents reported their child becoming bored during COVID-19. Interestingly, although reported relatively infrequently, 7.9% of parents reported observing a positive change in their child's behavior (e.g., expressing gratitude, feeling more relaxed) during the pandemic. [ INSERT TABLE 6 HERE] In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, we asked parents to tell us what they think their children need. The majority of parents (50.1%) reported that during the pandemic children needed general emotional support, such as love, care, and attention. Socialization (14.0%), entertainment (12.7%), and physical activity (10.7%), were indicated as important needs of children by participants. Approximately 9.7% reported that during the COVID-19 global health crisis, students needed access to education, including going back to school and having access to better educational resources at home. 9.2% emphasized the need for children to feel safe and protected. Furthermore, 7.7% of parents that responded reported that their children needed access to basic needs, such as toilet paper, food, and housing. Only about 7.2% reported that they felt that their children needed guidance and information about COVID-19 during the pandemic. Parental stability/security referenced the specific needs of children from their parents, and were differentiated from general emotional needs. About 6.5% of parents specifically indicated that children needed support from their parents (e.g., security from parents, even-tempered parenting). Finally, a small portion (3.0%) indicated that children needed to not be told about COVID-19 (e.g., to avoid scaring children). This study provides a snapshot in time of how families with young children were adapting to the COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic (April 2020). The results suggest that parents were engaging in higher levels of nearly all child caregiving activities following COVID-19, such as playing more often, reading more often, and watching TV more often with their children. Given the ramifications of social distancing measures and school closures due to COVID-19, it is perhaps not surprising that parents were more involved in everyday caregiving activities during this time. Notably, 53.6% of parents said they were hugging and showing physical affection toward their child more often following COVID-19. The increase in everyday caregiving activities occurs in the context of numerous stressors. For example, 1 in 4 parents reported an employment change related to COVID-19. Over half of the parents who said they received free and reduced cost school meals indicated that lack of access to this resource was a disruption to their daily life. This study documents very high levels of parental depression, parental anxiety, and parenting stress (APA, 2020; Patrick et al., 2020) . Two out of every five parents (40.0%) met the PHQ-8 criteria for probable major depression or severe major depression. Similarly, 39.9% met the GAD-7 criteria for moderate or severe anxiety. Though the rates of anxiety and depression among this sample of parents of young children were very high, they were consistent with the Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey. The nationally representative Household Pulse Survey indicated that during April 23 -May 5 2020, about 31% of American adults had symptoms of anxiety disorder; 23.5% had symptoms of depressive disorder; and about 36% had symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorder (CDC, 2020; U.S. Census Bureau, 2020). Notably, the rates in the current study as well as those reported by the CDC are more than double those shown prior to COVID-19. During January to June 2019, 8.2% of adults had symptoms of anxiety disorder; 6.6% had symptoms of depressive disorder; and 11.0% had symptoms of anxiety disorder or depressive disorder (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2020; Fowers & Wan, 2020). The high rates of parental mental health problems are also supported by recent research showing that parents are experiencing more stress and declines in mental health during the pandemic (APA, 2020; Patrick et al., 2020) . There is reason to be concerned about the mental health of American parents (Brooks et al., 2020; Panchal et al., 2020) , with the results of this study suggesting an alarmingly high rate of anxiety and depression among parents. At the point this survey was administered, in mid-April 2020, 97% of parents reported that public schools were closed, and a majority of parents (78%) were educating their child at home. The apparent disconnect between the report of school closures (97%) and parents saying they were educating their children at home (78%) can be explained by several factors. Some parents may have been relying on the child's other parent or another caregiver to provide athome education; thus, they themselves were not providing the education, and responded "no" to this question. In addition, some parents may not have been able to provide at-home education to their children, due to work and other responsibilities. Another potential explanation is that, although most parents (71.3%) felt supported by their child's school to provide at-home education, those that did not feel supported or well prepared may have been less likely to engage in at-home education with their child. Nonetheless, the gap between school closures and parents' report of at-home education is notable, and may be an area for concern as likelihood of continuing school closures or partial at-home education seems likely to continue for the 2020-2021 school year. Further research is needed to understand how schools can support parents to deliver or support at-home education. Multivariate analysis indicated that parental depression and parenting stress were significantly negatively associated with parents' perceived preparation to provide at-home education. It may be that the stresses experienced during the pandemic interfered with some parents' ability to educate their children at home. Because our data are cross-sectional, it is also important to note the possibility that parents who felt more prepared to provide at-home education may have had a better mental health in the wake of school closures. In other words, we cannot determine the direction of the association between parents' mental health and at-home education. Over one-third of the parents in this study said that their children were experiencing behavior changes since the pandemic. In content coding of open-ended questions, parents reported that their children were lonely, sad, and afraid. Multivariate analysis indicated that parental mental health -specifically, parental anxiety and parenting stress -were associated with higher levels of child anxiety. Parental employment changes were also linked to higher levels of child anxiety. To date, there is little empirical data on how children are faring during COVID-19. These results may suggest that, like their parents, children are suffering from anxiety that is associated with the disruptions to life from the pandemic. However, it is important to note that we do not have a baseline measure of child anxiety, and thus cannot infer that child anxiety levels have increased because of COVID-19. Future longitudinal research is needed to document whether children's anxiety increased as a result of the pandemic. Given that, prior to COVID-19, homeschooling was relatively rare, there is little data on how socioeconomically disadvantaged children, children without access to the internet, abused and neglected children, or children with learning disabilities or other developmental delays may fare during a widespread national shift to at-home education and/or parents supplementing online education. A limitation of the current study is that it does not encompass the challenges and experiences of marginalized children. Children who faced disadvantages prior to COVID-19 are going to be disproportionately impacted by lack of access to education and schooling (United Nations Children's Fund, 2020). One vulnerable group is children with physical and learning disabilities. Over seven million children with special needs, including those with autism spectrum disorder, thrive on routines and tend to also be reliant on in-school therapists and other services for individualized education programs (National Center for Education Statistics, 2020). Disruptions to routines, as well as lack of access to school-provided therapists and educational activities, may result in frustration and acting out behaviors (Lee, 2020) . In anticipation of the possibility of additional in-person education closures, it is critical to address solutions to provide services to children with special needs. This may include telehealth-based interventions or other strategies (Frederick, Raabe, Rogers, & Pizzica, 2020; Hinton, Sheffield, Sanders, & Sofronoff, 2017) . Research on the effects of the COVID-19 disease demonstrate that the impacts of COVID-19 have disproportionately impacted communities of color, socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals, as well as those with underlying health conditions and others who faced health inequalities before COVID-19. It is clear that the impacts of COVID-19 are exacerbated by underlying socioeconomic and racial inequalities in the U.S. (Ebor, Loeb, & Trejo, 2020; Fortuna, Tolou-Shams, Robles-Ramamurthy, & Porche, 2020) . Children in socioeconomically disadvantaged contexts are also likely to be disproportionately impacted by lack of access to in-person education, and special attention should be given to programs to support their educational and mental health needs. In addition, at least 1.5 million American children are homeless (National Center for Homeless Education, 2020) and homelessness is associated with lower educational outcomes for children (Manfra, 2019) . There are 146,000 child victims of maltreatment who are in foster care in the U.S. (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2020), and research shows children in foster care have poorer educational outcomes when compared to other children (Morton, 2015; Zetlin, Weinberg, & Kimm, 2004) . Abused and neglected children are particularly vulnerable, given that they have already been traumatized by maltreatment. Lack of access to caring adults such as school personnel, who can check on their welfare and provide support, as well as lack of access to much-needed resources, such as school meals, are especially problematic for these youth (Herd et al., 2020) . Further research is needed to better understand the experiences of at-home education and online education among parents and children who are homeless, in foster care, or who face other barriers to equal educational access (Herd et al., 2020) . Most schools do not offer mental health treatment services, and rely on teachers and nonclinical staff to support children's mental health (Fulks & Stratford, 2020) . Trauma-based interventions to help children cope with the aftereffects of COVID-19 may be especially effective when students return to in-person school activities. Trauma-based care in schools have been shown to be effective to support students' wellbeing. The best evidence for whole-school or classroom approaches delivered by teachers or non-clinical school staff. One promising approach is training school staff on the use of trauma-informed approaches that are implemented in a way that is specific to the unique needs of marginalized youth (Stratford et al., 2020) . Another promising model to support children during the closure of in-person education is the youthCONNECT program model, which is a partnership of youth-serving organizations that supported students during the pandemic (Sacks & Jones, 2020) . Community-based organizations may be able to provide children with meaningful connections to caring adults during a time of crisis. Furthermore, linkages with community-based organizations may help parents and youth connect to resources to address issues such as food insecurity and mental health needs. This study speaks to the experiences of mostly White (70%), middle-income parents. Minority parents were underrepresented in the sample. The data were collected using a convenience sampling approach, thus, the study results are not nationally representative and are not generalizable to all parents in the U.S. All study analyses reported herein are cross-sectional in nature. We cannot infer causality in the results, nor can we conclusively determine whether the patterns of associations documented in this study are the result of COVID-19. For example, we do not have baseline measures of child anxiety; thus, it is not possible to determine whether the child anxiety levels found in this study reflect an increase in child anxiety due to the pandemic. All measures in this study were reported by parents; thus, all the study results are parents' perceptions. We do not have data from third parties to verify or validate study results. All of the study results should be interpreted with these caveats in mind. The current study provides a one-time snapshot of parent and child wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular, some of the dynamics as families adjusted to in-person education closures and shifted to at-home educational options. Parents were engaged in more everyday activities with their child and most parents were hugging and showing physical affection more often, even while 1 in 4 parents were affected by changes to employment. Parents reported high levels of daily schedule disruptions, as well as stressors such as lack of access to free and reduced price school meals. High levels of parental depression and parenting stress have implications for parents' perceived ability to provide at-home education. As the pandemic continues into the 2020-2021 school year, parents and children are clearly in need of more mental health intervention to reduce mental health problems, as well as assistance in carrying out at-home educational activities. Innovative solutions that utilize telehealth as well as partnerships with community-based organizations may help to meet these challenges. Used online or social media resources 314 77.1 Support from child(ren)'s school 315 71.3 Collaborated with other parents 315 22.5 Note: n reflects the total number of individuals who responded to the question. Only parents who were currently educating their child at home (n = 315) were asked the "resources to educate at home" items. Individuals who answered "not applicable" were not included in percentage calculation. PHQ-8 criteria for probable major depression or severe major depression). Parental anxiety is coded as (0=minimal or mild anxiety, 1=meets GAD-7 criteria for probable moderate or severe anxiety). 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Individuals who answered "not applicable" or left the response box blank (n = 179) were not included in percentage calculation. Table 5 . Type of Technology Frequency (%) Online Educational Tools 59.9% "ABC mouse", "study island", "Khan Academy", "Wikipedia", "PBS", "prodigy", "epic"School-Based 28.5% "The school has provided a website for lessons and homework", "SeeSaw", "Google classroom", "resources provided by the course coordinator", "the schools app", "teacher has mailed and emailed assignments I can work with my child"Social Media 26.1% "YouTube", "the mom groups on Facebook", "pinterest" Miscellaneous 7.4% "I don't use online resources", "amazon" Live Remote 7.0% "online meetings with teacher", "zoom meetings with tutors"Paper-Based 5.3% "printing out worksheets from K5 learning website" Note: n reflects the total number of individuals who responded to the question. Individuals who answered "not applicable" or left the response box blank (n = 121) were not included in percentage calculation. 27.8% "worries more", "anxious", "afraid and hesitant to leave the house", "stressed"Depressive Symptoms (Internalizing Problems) 18.3% "less energetic", "sad", "depressed", "sleeps a lot", "less desire to interact with peers", "lonely" , "cries a lot" Bored 15.1% "bored", "they aren't as motivated as usual", "often complain of being bored"Positive 7.9% "more thankful and helpful", "hasn't been as cranky", "more excited to spend time with the family", "more relaxed"Miscellaneous 7.9% "I don't use online resources", "amazon" Note: n reflects the total number of individuals who responded to the question. Of the total sample, 140 parents indicated that they had observed change in their child's behavior and were prompted to answer this question. Individuals who answered "not applicable" or left the response box blank (n = 14) were not included in percentage calculation. Table 7 . Type of Need Frequency (%) General Emotional Needs 50.1% "love", "support", "attention" Socialization 14.0% "friends to communicate with", "socialize with kids their own age", "a way to interact with another child" Entertainment 12.7% "convenient access to pastime that isn't on a screen", "new and interesting ways of being entertained", "things to keep them busy" Physical Activity 10.7% "play outside with other kids", "better kid workout videos", "better weather so we can be outside", "more exercise"School 9.7% "to go back to school", "more formal education", "better schooling resources", "more educational engagement"Feel Safe/Protected 9.2% "reassured that they will be safe", "clarity and plan from trustworthy adults", "understand as long as they do the right thing they will be ok" Basic Needs 7.7% "food and toiletries", "cleaning supplies", "housing", "money"Share Covid-19 Guidance 7.2% "lots of safety and precautions", "take responsibility for themselves", "someone to clarify the situation", "guidance"Parental Stability/Security 6.5% "good parenting", "her parents to be eventempered", "for us to be as calm and rational as possible", "security from parents" Miscellaneous 6.2% "alone time", "wake up from day dreaming and the usual grind"Withhold Covid-19 Guidance 3.0% "they need to not be told about this because it would terrify them unnecessarily", "they need the restrictions to be lifted… the flu kills more"Note: n reflects the total number of individuals who responded to the question. Individuals who answered "not applicable" or left the response box blank (n = 4) were not included in percentage calculation. Shawna J. Lee conceptualized the study, collected the data, conducted data analysis, reviewed data analysis, and prepared the first draft of the manuscript. Kaitlin P. Ward contributed to the selection of study variables, conducted data analysis, created tables, and contributed to writing the study manuscript. Olivia D. Chang conducted qualitative content coding and contributed to writing the study manuscript. Kasey M. Downing conducted qualitative content coding and contributed to writing the study manuscript. The authors confirm that they have no conflicts of interest to report related to this study.