Parent–Child Conflict During Homeschooling in Times of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A key Role for Mothers’ Self-Efficacy in Teaching

To contain the COVID-19 pandemic schools have been closed in many countries. Children stayed at home and were assisted by their parents with their schoolwork. Evidently, homeschooling puts extra demands on parents. We presumed that parents’ sense of self-efficacy in teaching would play a key role in how they cope with this extra task of homeschooling. In particular, we hypothesized that parental characteristics (social-economic status (SES) and Stress) and social-contextual factors (home chaos; school support) would contribute to parents’ teaching self-efficacy and that, in turn, a lower efficacy would result in more parent-child conflicts during home schooling. Participants were 173 mothers of children in kindergarten or early elementary schools, who provided information for one of their children about interpersonal conflicts around schoolwork before and during school closure. Additionally, they reported on their self-efficacy in teaching, perceived stress during lockdown, home chaos, and school support. Path analyses indicated that mothers’ perceived stress and household chaos were associated with a lower sense of self-efficacy in teaching, whereas school support, but not family SES, was related to a higher level of teaching self-efficacy. Higher levels of self-efficacy beliefs, in turn, were associated with a lower degree of parent–child conflict during schoolwork, even after controlling for prior levels of conflict. We discuss how the results of this study might be used to foster parents’ self-efficacy in teaching and thereby decrease the amount of parent-child conflict during parents’ support with schoolwork.

Home Chaos: Predictor of Behavioral and Peer Problems Among Young Children

The present research was conducted to find out home chaos as a predictor of behavioral and peers problems among young children. Sample consisted of 80 children (40 girls and 40 boys), with an age range of 3 to 7 years (M = 5.32, SD = 1.26). It was hypothesized that children from families reporting high chaos would show high levels of behavioral and peer problems. Confusion, Hubbub, and Order Scale-Urdu (Shamama-tus-Sabah & Gilani, 2006) and Strengths and Difficulty Questionnaire (Goodman, 2001) were administered to measure home chaos, behavioral and peer problems and prosocial behavior respectively. Correlation and Hierarchical multiple Regression was run to analyze the data. Home chaos was found to be positively correlated with children’s behavioral and peer problems. Moreover it was also found to be a significant predictor of behavioral and peer problems and prosocial behavior among young children. Implications and limitations and suggestion for future research have been discussed.

Relation of home chaos to cognitive performance and behavioral adjustment of Pakistani primary school children

Recent findings from Western developed countries have linked home chaos to children’s cognitive performance and behavioral problems. In the present paper we test whether the same pattern of associations can be replicated in a non-Western developing country. Our sample was 203 Pakistani primary school children. To assess home chaos the Confusion, Hubbub, and Order Scale (CHAOS) was translated into Urdu and administered to mothers. Children were assessed using the parent and teachers rating forms of the Behavioral Assessment System for Children and the Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices. Home chaos was not related to children’s cognitive performance. However, replicating previous findings from Western developed countries, greater home chaos uniquely predicted higher levels of internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems as well as lower levels of adaptive behavior in Pakistani children, as rated by both mothers and teachers.