{"id":6312,"date":"2020-09-11T15:18:26","date_gmt":"2020-09-11T15:18:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.reading.ac.uk\/connected\/?p=6312"},"modified":"2020-09-11T16:28:22","modified_gmt":"2020-09-11T16:28:22","slug":"quality-time-at-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.reading.ac.uk\/connected\/2020\/09\/11\/quality-time-at-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Quality Time At Home"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As home schooling draws to a close and children return to their schools, a collaboration between the University of Reading, Oxford and Southampton has found that lockdown did have benefits for young children.<\/span><\/p>\n

Young children of employed parents or carers improved their concentration and had fewer tantrums during COVID-19, despite the pressures of childcare placed on families.<\/p>\n

Psychologists working on the \u2018Co-Spyce\u2019 study \u2013 a collaboration between the University of Reading, Oxford and Southampton \u2013 asked nearly 1,000 parents and carers with pre-school children to monitor changes in their children\u2019s emotions, disobedience, attention spans and other behaviours over a one-month period during the UK lockdown.<\/p>\n

The researchers found that the children showed on average a small reduction in restlessness and attention problems. For children of employed parents or carers, there has been a small but significant improvement in their behaviour and attention.<\/p>\n

The benefits of lockdown<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\"\"Professor Helen Dodd from Reading\u2019s School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences<\/a>, explains that the potential negative impact of lockdown that many feared, may not have been as bad as expected.<\/p>\n

Professor Dodd said: \u201cWe might have expected to see increases in behaviour and attention problems in young children during lockdown because of changes in routine and missing friends and family.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese results suggest that this hasn\u2019t been the case, at least for the families taking part in the \u2018Co-Spyce\u2019 study. It is reassuring as well to see that, overall, emotional problems have not increased in young children during the one month follow-up period.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cOur first report revealed that many families were finding it difficult to keep their children entertained, particularly while having to juggle family time and home schooling with the challenges of working from home.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cIt is therefore surprising, perhaps, that the children who showed the biggest reduction in attention and behaviour problems were those with working parents or carers.<\/p>\n

\n

“We hear a lot about the potential negative impact the lockdown may have had on young children while they could not go to school or nursery, but this study shows that, at least in some respects, things may not have been as bad as expected.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The results<\/strong><\/h4>\n

A total of 972 parents and carers with children aged two to five filled out two questionnaires between April and July 2020: one assessing their children\u2019s general behaviour as a starting point, and then another a month later reporting any changes to this behaviour.<\/p>\n

The behavioural changes surveyed were split into three categories: emotional (worried, afraid, clingy), behavioural (disobedience, tantrums, fighting, lying), and restless\/attentional (lack of attention, low attention span, hyperactivity, fidgeting).<\/p>\n

Each child surveyed was given a score out of 10 for each category, based on the responses \u2013 a higher score indicating greater difficulties.<\/p>\n

The study also found that on average, children showed improvements in their attention, but very little change in their emotions or behaviour. In addition there seemed to be very little difference between children in households with higher and lower incomes, and between those in families of different ethnicities.<\/p>\n

Future flexibility<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Professor Dodd believes that the results suggest children are more resilient and able to cope during times of raised anxiety than we sometimes give them credit for, and considers how we might be able to retain some of the benefits of lockdown as we move forward.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cThe small improvements we see in the \u2018Co-Spyce\u2019 children may have happened for a number of reasons.<\/p>\n

\n

“One possible explanation is that children benefited from having more time at home with their parents and carers. Even when it doesn\u2019t feel like \u2018quality time\u2019 to the parents, it may benefit their children.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cAn alternative explanation is that many of the daily pressures put on young children to conform to adult-led schedules were removed during lockdown, leading to fewer perceived behavioural and attentional problems. Any parent who has tried to get a young child into their shoes and out of the door on time in the morning will know this is a challenging point in the day!<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThis is a reminder of the many educational, health and economic benefits for the UK that could flow from having improved policies around shared parental leave, flexible working and childcare.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Find out more<\/a> about Professor Dodd\u2019s research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As home schooling draws to a close and children return to their schools, a collaboration between the University of Reading, Oxford and Southampton has found that lockdown did have benefits for young children. Young children of employed parents or carers improved their concentration and had fewer tantrums during COVID-19, despite the pressures of childcare placed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":170,"featured_media":6274,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[85,86,41,95,94,87],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nQuality Time At Home - Connected<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A collaboration between the University of Reading, Oxford and Southampton has found that lockdown did have benefits for young children.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.reading.ac.uk\/connected\/2020\/09\/11\/quality-time-at-home\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Quality Time At Home - 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