Examining the Contributions of Parents' Daily Hassles and Parenting Approaches to Children's Behavior Problems during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Ibrahim H Acar; Sevval Nur Sezer; İlayda Uculas; Fatma Ozge Unsal

doi:10.3390/children10020312

Examining the Contributions of Parents' Daily Hassles and Parenting Approaches to Children's Behavior Problems during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Children (Basel). 2023 Feb 7;10(2):312. doi: 10.3390/children10020312.

Authors

Ibrahim H Acar¹, Sevval Nur Sezer¹, İlayda Uculas¹, Fatma Ozge Unsal²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Çekmeköy Campus, Ozyeğin University, 34794 Istanbul, Turkey.
² Department of Early Childhood Education, Faculty of Education, Göztepe Campus, Marmara University, 34722 Istanbul, Turkey.

Abstract

The present study was designed to examine the direct and indirect contributions of parenting daily hassles and approaches to children's externalizing and internalizing behavior problems during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sample for this study was 338 preschool children (53.6% girls, M_age = 56.33 months, SD = 15.14) and their parents in Turkey. Parents reported their daily hassles, parenting approaches, and children's behavior problems. Findings from the structural equation model showed that higher levels of parenting daily hassles predicted higher levels of externalizing and internalizing behavior problems. In addition, we found an indirect effect of daily hassles on children's internalizing behaviors via positive parenting. Further, there was an indirect path from parenting daily hassles to children's externalizing behaviors through the negative parenting approach. Results are discussed in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: behavior problems; parenting approaches; parenting daily hassles; the COVID-19 pandemic.

Grants and funding

This research received no external funding.