Parenting and pandemic pressures: Examining nuances in parent, child, and family well-being concerns during COVID-19 in a Canadian sample

Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic has caused vast disruptions in family life for Canadian parents since early 2020. While numerous environmental stressors have been identified, including job loss and the demands of balancing work-life conflicts and at-home schooling, relatively less is known about the areas of family life parents are most concerned about and how these worries relate to well-being across the family system. Methods Canadian parents (n = 29,831, 90.29% mothers, 57.40% Ontario residents) of children aged 0–14 were surveyed about their concerns related to child, parent, and family well-being in June 2020. Structural equation modelling was used to model the relationship between concerns about children, parenting, and the whole family, in association with several sociodemographic variables including child disability status, parent sex and education, job loss during COVID-19, and caregiver employment. Results Parenting, child, and family concerns were positively correlated. Higher child and family concerns were reported by parents who had not attended university, those who had experienced employment loss or reduced hours, and families with all adults working outside the home. Parents of children with a disability reported higher concerns across all three domains: child, parenting, and family psychosocial well-being. Discussion These results showcase distinct associations between social determinants of health and the types of worries caregivers exhibited across multiple areas of family life during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. Findings are interpreted in relation to clinical intervention and public policy targets for families.

.45 ** -Note: Concern variables respectively reflect indicators for the 1.Child Concern, 2. Parent Concern, and 3. Family Concern latent variables **Correlation is significant at the p < 0.01 level (2-tailed).Listwise case deletion for incomplete cases, chart includes all data from the restricted sample (without multivariate outliers).

Descriptive information
Descriptive statistics for the female and male caregiver subsets of the data are included in Table 2.The sample of male caregivers in this dataset included n = 2895 participants.Missing data across this subset of the data was as follows: Child with a disability (2.69%), parent education (2.66%), job loss or reduced hours (16.72%), employment structure (20.45%), and all concern variables (<0.1-0.5% for all variables except parent concerns about child school/academics (6.67%)).The sample of female caregivers in this dataset included n = 26936 participants.Missing data across this subset of the data was as follows: Child with a disability (0.50%), parent education (0.27%), job loss (15.46%), employment structure (18.47%), and all "concern" (Child, parent and family) variables (<0.1-0.5% for all variables except parent concerns about child school/academics (7.28%)).

Analysis
The same confirmatory factor analysis procedure was applied to the respective mother and father data subsets.

Female Caregivers Only
The final measurement model from the manuscript (which includes four within-factor correlations) was tested and the model fit was within the acceptable range, though the CFI was slightly lower than the recommended ≥.95 cut off (Hu & Bentler, 1999).

Male Caregivers Only
The final measurement model from the manuscript (which includes two within-factor correlations) was tested and achieved was within the acceptable range, though the CFI was slightly lower than the recommended ≥.95 cut off (Hu & Bentler, 1999).Model fit was as follows: n = 2656, χ 2 (39) = 444.74,p <. 001, CFI = .944,RMSEA = 0.079 (0.073-0.086),SRMR = .038.All three latent variables were significantly positively correlated (Child and parent concerns: r = .82;child and family concerns: r = .71,parent and family concerns: r = .84;ps < .001)and all the specified factor loadings for each latent variable were statistically significant (ps < .001).Similarly, when the structural model was tested with the addition of regressions for the sociodemographic variables, the model fit the data well, though the CFI was slightly lower than the recommended ≥.95 cut off.Model fit: n = 1876; χ 2 (71) = 406.72,p

Table 2
Descriptive Statistics for Study Variables stratified by Parent Sex Note: Values reflect the number of complete cases within each level of the variable, after exclusion of missing data (i.e., "Not Stated" and "Not applicable" responses) and multivariate outliers.The range for all concern variables was 1 (Not at all concerned)-4 (Extremely concerned).

Table 3
Structural regression model parameter estimates for social determinants of health in association with parent-reported concerns, by parent sex All variables were dummy coded such that parents who did not complete university, parents who did not experience job loss and those without a child with a disability were all coded 0. Significant paths bolded: *~p = .047,*p ≤ .05,**p ≤ .01,***p ≤ .001 Note: