Views of Aging During the Corona Pandemic

In the Covid-19 pandemic, media stories and government reports have emphasized the heightened risk of being “old” and placed a spotlight on the way we think and talk about older adults and aging. In this symposium we investigate how the pandemic and the public discourse about older adults has shaped views of aging in different countries. Bellingtier et al. report on German children’s views of older adults before and during the pandemic. Children placed greater distance between themselves and older adults both before and after the pandemic, suggesting early ageism in children that predates the pandemic. Levy et al. provide experimental evidence that media stereotypes about aging and Covid-19 influence the mental health of older American adults, both in positive and negative. Schwartz and Ayalon found that greater perceptions of age-based discrimination in the healthcare system by Israeli adults 50+ were significantly related to greater Covid-19 worries. Greater worry can motivate older adults to take precautions, but be detrimental if it becomes too high. In line with this finding, Tingvold et al. found in a study with older adults from Luxembourg that more Covid-19 worry predicted feeling older four months later, but only for those in worse health. Finally, Terracciano examined longitudinal change in subjective age and found that American adults reported feeling younger after the emergence of Covid-19 than before, suggesting that perceptions of aging partly reflect a coping process to counter the negativity in the media.

Einschätzungen zu Bindungsbeziehungen und geäußerter Kindeswille in einer Stichprobe von Sachverständigengutachten zu Sorgerechtsstreitigkeiten (§ 1671 BGB)

For a sample of 103 court cases with parental conflicts regarding custody and residence results on attachment diagnostics by psychological court experts are reported. Attachment diagnostics was performed using multiple methods with two observations per parent. It was coded whether there were indications for a similar level of emotional security with both parents or more emotional security with one parent than the other. In addition, indications for attachment disorganization, manipulation of the child by one or both parents and children’s views regarding residence were coded. About 55% of the children showed indications for more emotional security with one than the other parent. 38% of the children did not express any preference regarding their preference. If a preference was expressed and if there were indications for more emotional security with one than the other parent, children most often wanted to live with the parent to whom they showed comparably more indications for emotional security. Manipulation, especially manipulation by both parents was associated with indications for attachment disorganization.

Children's vision of the covid-19 pandemic: gender-specific views of older preschoolers and younger schoolchildren

Introduction. This article presents the results of the research project "Children's Vision of the COVID-19 pandemic" implemented in 2020. According to many experts, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to negative consequences for the physical (somatic), psychic and psychological and the health of the population. The works of foreign and domestic authors state the facts of a number of negative psychological effects of an emotional, mental and behavioral nature. However, against the background of the available research, a significant gap is found, which concerns the children's version of the perception of the situation of the pandemic and forced isolation, and above all its gender specificity in relation to the stage of early ontogenesis – senior preschool and primary school age.Materials and Methods. To collect the actual data, a projective verbal method of writing a story on the theme "The Tale of the Coronavirus" was used. In total, 138 stories were collected (68 of them were composed by girls and 70 by boys), the content analysis of which was carried out through the open coding procedure. Comparative gender analysis of the texts of the stories was conducted in seven main categories: "characteristics of the coronavirus", "origin of the coronavirus", "current (frustrated) needs", "resources for overcoming difficulties", "emotions", "key events" and "gender of the characters".Results. The data obtained showed the predominantly negative nature of children's views of the coronavirus, pronounced discomfort in most of them caused by frustration of the needs for security, freedom, positive emotions and social contacts, the predominance of a mostly anxious emotional background of the perception of the pandemic situation with a predominance of fear, as well as a special emphasis on such resources for overcoming difficulties as compliance with preventive measures and hygiene rules, medical care and restriction of activity. At the same time, the gender specificity of children's ideas about the COVID-19 pandemic was found, which consists in a more pronounced orientation towards people of their own sex, emphasizing their own role in solving the problem and focusing on active resistance to the threat in boys and focusing on the emotional side of events, emphasizing the role of others and waiting for salvation from outside in girls.Discussion and Conclusions. According to the results of the study, it is concluded that the content of ideas about the COVID-19 pandemic and self-isolation of girls and boys of senior preschool and primary school age, along with general trends, has a gender specificity, which reflects the results of differentiated gender socialization prevailing at the stages of early ontogenesis, based on the tradition of gender polarization.

Children’s Views on Children’s Rights: A Systematic Literature Review

Children’s rights are set out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This systematic literature review aimed to investigate children’s views of children’s rights, at a broad level. Nine papers were included, from a range of countries and contexts. They all accessed the views of children and young people (aged up to 18 years). A content analysis was carried out using a recursive process of hybrid aggregative-configurative synthesis, and themes within children’s views and factors that may affect these were identified. These were ‘awareness of rights’, ‘value placed on (importance of) rights’, ‘impact of having/not having rights fulfilled’, ‘realisation and respect of rights’, ‘equality of rights’, ‘identifying and categorising of rights’, and ‘factors that may affect children’s views’. These were developed into a progression of rights realisation and implications for practice and further research were considered.

Missed opportunities. Why is Canada missing out on the opportunity to implement a National Children’s Rights Commissioner?

Policies can impact the well-being of children both directly and indirectly. Despite the growing acceptance of children as active citizens, they are often neglected in decision-making regarding policy. The Canadian government, which is built on principles of liberty and respect of human rights has the duty to guarantee that children’s views and needs are taken into account. In this regard, the creation of a National Children’s Rights Commissioner is an essential step to the establishment of a system that is accountable to children and the entire community. In this paper, we present the arguments in support of the need for a National Commissioner of Children and Youth in Canada. Recent research on the beneficial impact of the National Commissioner and their successes across different Commonwealth countries will be presented, and implications will be discussed.

Animal Representation on UK Children’s Television

It is widely accepted that television is a powerful medium and that its influence, particularly on children and young people, can be profound (see for example Canadian Paediatric Society 2003; Strasburger 2004; Matyjas 2015). The representation and categorisation of non-humans in such content may therefore influence a culture’s attitudes towards those species and, by extension, its children’s views. This article investigates animal characters on three hundred and fourteen children’s TV shows across five days of ‘free’ to view UK programming during summer 2020, and is the first study in over twenty-five years (since Elizabeth Paul’s in 1996) to focus specifically on mainstream children’s TV, and the only one to have sole regard for pre- and early primary-age UK viewers. With research clear that the media is so influential, recognising the role of such culture transmission is vital to ‘undo’ unhelpful assumptions about animals that result in their exploitation, and change future norms (Joy 2009). Television media either ignores or misrepresents the subjective reality of many (particularly food) species, but with children preferring anthropomorphised animals to most others (Geerdts, Van de Walle and LoBue 2016), this carries implications in terms of responsibility for our ideas and subsequent treatment of those non-humans in everyday life.