Bear in a Window: Australian children's perspectives on lockdown and experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic

This paper examines the reflections of a cohort of Australian children who lived through the 2020–21 COVID-19 pandemic and experienced being in ‘lockdown’; a state of largely being confined to the home for long periods daily. We report how children reflect on their experiences and illustrate how reflections draw on similar topics focused on localised child concerns regarding health, education, family, digital engagement, mealtimes and food. Further, we argue for the importance of including children's own voices of lived experience in reports regarding life during the pandemic since these perspectives may differ from those reported by adults on children's behalf.     

Infant externalizing behavior and parent depressive symptoms: Prospective predictors of parental pandemic related distress

Understanding predictors and effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic is a top-priority in research endeavors. The impact of COVID-19 on all components of family life and mental health cannot be overstated. This study emphasizes the need to investigate predictors of parents' responses to disaster by conceptualizing the depth of the impact of the pandemic using Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological Systems Model. We evaluate parents of infants as the center of the microsystem and discuss the importance of parents' responses to the pandemic for children's development. Specifically, utilizing a prospective design involving a sample of 105 infant-mother-father triads, we test the predictive effects of mothers' and fathers' mental health and infant externalizing behavior assessed prior to the pandemic when infants were 16-months on later pandemic related distress (PRD) approximately 1 year later. Results indicate that for both mothers and fathers, more depressive symptoms during their child's infancy predicted more PRD. Although mothers' reports of more child externalizing behavior significantly predicted more PRD, fathers' reports of externalizing were strongly, positively correlated with their concurrent depressive symptoms but not directly related to PRD. We demonstrate the importance of pre-existing mental health and parents' perceptions of their children's behavior as early as 16 months, in coping with disaster.     

‘We can play tag with a stick’. Children's knowledge,experiences, feelings and creative thinking during the COVID-19 pandemic

Using a relational approach, we draw on repeated interviews with a group of 30 diverse children from Ontario to share and reflect on their knowledge, experiences and feelings early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Prioritising relational interdependence and relational agency, this paper illustrates our participants' embedded engagements with the pandemic and their contribution to the co-production of knowledge. We emphasise their thoughtful responses to the pandemic; their creative, self-reflexive strategies for managing a difficult time; and their advice to others. We thus prioritise children's viewpoints and emphasise their relational interconnections with others during a time that was marked by social isolation.     

Analyzing Children's Learning and Development in Everyday Settings from a Cultural-Historical Wholeness Approach

The main point in this article is to conceptualise how demands connected to children's life conditions influence both children and caregivers. To pursue this aim I advocate an extension of Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory of children's learning and development. Vygotsky pursued a wholeness approach to children's development with his concept of “the child's social situation of development” as the child's dialectic experiential and motivational relation with his or her surrounding. This conception I extend with the concepts of institutional practice and activity setting. The conditions for children's activities are the institutional practice and its activity settings. But a child's activities in these settings also has to be seen from the child's perspective, that is, his or her motive orientation. To focus on the child's motive within an activity setting—requires the researcher to focus on the child's social situation of development to discern how the dialectic between the child's orientation within an activity setting and the demands from the setting and other persons influence the child's activities within the child's zone of proximal development.     

Preschoolers' perceptions of neighborhood environment,safety, and help-seeking

Studies that focus on children's safety and well-being often focus on neighborhoods as the unit of analysis, as it is within these geographic confines that children spend much of their time. Such studies have shown that neighborhoods directly and indirectly influence children's safety and well-being. Much of this research has focused on census data and/or caregivers' perceptions of neighborhood characteristics. Less attention has been given to the neighborhood experiences and perceptions of children themselves, especially young children. The current study utilized two techniques for interviewing pre-schoolers (aged 4 and 5): individual interviews incorporating drawing and focus groups integrating a story and a puppet. The current study highlights the important of incorporating children's perceptions and offers new measures of doing so. In the current study, very young children were put in the center of the exploration and the findings stress that children's experiences in their neighborhood were geographically limited. They talked about their homes, preschools, and the playground. In part, this finding may be indicative of the lack of child-friendly spaces and resources for children in the neighborhood. In addition, the current study shed a light into children understanding and ability to discuss safety and help seeking, which are key concepts to any future planning of prevention and intervention efforts with children. Delve into the individuals to whom children said they turned for help revealed extremely limited list of family members, which raises concerns about the support networks available to the children and their families. This study suggests that the inclusion of young children's perspectives may facilitate programs and initiatives aimed at improving their safety and well-being by identifying sources of protections and threat from children's own perspectives.     

Children's participation in foster care placements

This article presents results from a study of the birth children of foster carers and their experiences of growing up with foster siblings. Data were gathered from focus groups (17 participants), discussion groups (16 participants), a questionnaire (684 responses) and eight individual interviews. The children's participation in the fostering placements is in focus. Accounts from the children show that several of them participate in care-giving activities in everyday life. Their participation in the official assignment is however limited and can lead to children taking on responsibility with no support from adults. The tension between children's agency and position in society is addressed. The study shows how power relations between children and adults come into play, how both children and adults (re)-produce positions where children's rights to have a say in questions that concern them are not reflected within fostering processes.     

Health and commercialism: a content analysis of popular Chinese children's websites

This paper analyzed 113 popular children's websites and the children's sections of general websites in China. It also examined 511 ads that appeared on the homepages of these websites. Commercialism and health concerns were the primary focus of the analysis. The results showed that these websites did not adequately protect children's health and privacy online. Less than 20% of the websites surveyed contained any type of health warning. Nearly half of the websites collected personal information from children, but only a handful of them asked for parental permission. Each website hosted more than four ads on its homepage, most of which were graphical and unlabeled. The implications of this negligence for mitigation actions are discussed.     

Civic Engagement and Latina Immigrant Mothers' Remote Learning Involvement During COVID-191

Immigrant incorporation scholars have established that racialized immigrant parents encounter several barriers in their children's schooling: namely, language and cultural differences, discrimination, unfamiliarity with the U.S. schooling system, and unhelpful school agents. However, less is known about the mechanisms that lessen these challenges. Drawing on insights from immigrant incorporation and civic engagement literature, this study examines how advocacy organizations can mediate the barriers racialized immigrant parents face in their children's schooling. A case study of 20 Latina immigrant mothers is used to demonstrate how civically engaged parents drew on their participation with a local advocacy organization—Parent's Choice—to overcome the barriers that emerged during the transition to remote learning due to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Findings suggest that immigrant mothers leveraged their connection to Parent's Choice to learn how to use technology, get district-related updates, secure devices necessary for at-home learning, create complaints or demands for services at their children's school, fill out paperwork, and access community-based referrals. Parent's Choice provided support and empowered Latina immigrant parents by minimizing the overwhelming barriers they faced during online learning. These findings complicate our understanding of immigrant civic engagement patterns and provide implications of how civic engagement can facilitate the incorporation of marginalized parents in educational institutions.     

Children's Presence in the Neighbourhood: A Social‐Pedagogical Perspective

In this article we discuss some theoretical and methodological perspectives for studying children's neighbourhoods as a social‐pedagogical context. This social‐pedagogical perspective includes a focus in research on a reflective approach based on the acquisition of empirical indicators about the impact of the neighbourhood on children's socialisation. A research outline based on the idea of mapping children's neighbourhoods within their social and historical context is presented as one possible example of such an analysis.     

Transfer of learning: concept and process

This article will present findings from a doctoral study exploring the impact of 'SVQ Care: Promoting Independence (level III)' within children's homes. The study focuses on the extent to which SVQs enhance practice and their function within a 'learning society'. A total of 30 staff were selected from seven children's homes in two different local authority social work departments in Scotland. Each member of staff was interviewed on four separate occasions over a period of 9 months. Interviews were structured using a combination of repertory grids and questions. Particular focus was given to the assessment process, the extent to which SVQs enhance practice and the learning experiences of staff. The findings suggest that there are considerable deficiencies both in terms of the SVQ format and the way in which children's homes are structured for the assessment of competence. Rather than address the history of failure within residential care, it appears that SVQs have enabled the status quo to be maintained whilst creating an 'illusion' of change within a learning society.     

Felt tip pens and school councils: children's participation rights in four English schools

The United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child has created practical challenges for nation states and institutions particularly in relation to children's rights to participation. The limited research that is available has tended to use survey methodology; qualitative accounts of children's daily lives are rare. The present study investigated the nature of children's participation in their education in two primary and two secondary schools; in particular the right to express views freely in all matters affecting the child. The study found that children's opportunities to express their views were extremely limited even when school councils were in place. It is concluded that the goal of active citizenship espoused by recent national curriculum developments will remain illusive unless educational practice changes to a focus on school processes rather than products. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

‘You Can't Have Well‐being If You're Dead…or Can You?’ Children's Realistic and Logical Approach to Discussing Life,Death and Wellbeing

Well‐being is a popularised and regularly considered aspect of an individual's life. Whilst frequently theorised across disciplines interested in childhood, children's perspectives on well‐being are often missing. This article presents children's views on well‐being, focussing on the extent they consider well‐being to exist after death or near‐death experiences. Through focus‐group discussion, children's conversations reflect their ability for deep philosophical, abstract thinking and contributing to clearer understandings of well‐being across different contexts. Children's pragmatic responses about death when considering well‐being provide a valuable contribution to understanding fear of death whilst arguing for collaborative approaches between adults and children when considering complex issues.     

Children as domestic employees: Problems and promises

While children's domestic work is widely seen as acceptable in a child's own home, there has been growing attention to the vulnerability of children employed in domestic service; some people have argued that this work should be banned outside children's homes. This article considers both the potential harm as well as the benefits accruing to children in such environments, and has inquired into the opinions of children who themselves are involved in this kind of situation. This exploration has encountered obstacles: for example, institutions for fostering children and extended-family scenarios frequently blur the boundaries between work within the home and for outside employment. While support for child domestic workers should be a matter of urgency, stopping children from working outside their homes is not necessarily an effective way of protecting them, and, further, this approach removes possible material resources from some disadvantaged children. It is, instead, better to focus on positive ways of improving children's opportunities.     

Re‐framing the Analysis: A 3‐dimensional Perspective of Prisoners’ Children's Well‐being

This article highlights three dimensions to understanding children's well‐being during and after parental imprisonment which have not been fully explored in current research. A consideration of ‘time’ reveals the importance of children's past experiences and their anticipated futures. A focus on ‘space’ highlights the impact of new or altered environmental dynamics. A study of ‘agency’ illuminates how children cope within structural, material and social confines which intensify vulnerability and dependency. This integrated perspective reveals important differences in individual children's experiences and commonalities in broader systemic and social constraints on prisoners’ children. The paper analyses data from a prospective longitudinal study of 35 prisoners’ children during and after their (step) father's imprisonment to illustrate the arguments.     

Lability of prenatal stress during the COVID-19 pandemic links to negative affect in infancy

The association between prenatal stress and children's socioemotional development is well established. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a particularly stressful period, which may impact the gestational environment. However, most studies to-date have examined prenatal stress at a single time point, potentially masking the natural variation in stress that occurs over time, especially during a time as uncertain as the pandemic. This study leveraged dense ecological momentary assessments from a prenatal randomized control trial to examine patterns of prenatal stress over a 14-week period (up to four assessments/day) in a U.S. sample of 72 mothers and infants. We first examined whether varied features of stress exposure (lability, mean, and baseline stress) differed depending on whether mothers reported on their stress before or during the pandemic. We next examined which features of stress were associated with 3-month-old infants' negative affect. We did not find differences in stress patterns before and during the pandemic. However, greater stress lability, accounting for baseline and mean stress, was associated with higher infant negative affect. These findings suggest that pathways from prenatal stress exposure to infant socioemotional development are complex, and close attention to stress patterns over time will be important for explicating these pathways.     

Exploring changes in family functioning when a child participates in a School-Based Filial Therapy program

Child focus is a central construct within Bowen family systems theory (Bowen theory). A clinical implication is that mental health treatment focusing on a child may unwittingly reinforce the operation of child-focused processes, which undermine rather than enhance child well-being. The concept of child focus in Bowen theory presents significant implications for professionals working in school settings and in fields such as children's mental health, which are inherently child-focused. Bowen theory is the guiding theoretical framework for School-Based Filial Therapy (SBFT). SBFT is a play therapy intervention that was initially established in remote and outer-regional New South Wales, Australia in response to the low availability of children's mental health services and the significant barriers associated with caregiver engagement in children's mental health treatment. It involves trained school personnel facilitating therapeutic play sessions with children experiencing emotional–behavioural problems. The intervention occurs on school grounds, during school hours, and children's family members do not participate in the intervention. This mixed-methods study examines the impact of children's participation in SBFT upon family functioning. Interviews with caregivers (n = 10) of children who participated in 10 SBFT sessions were analysed using content analysis. Quantitative data were collected using the Differentiation of Self Inventory – Short Form and Visual Analogue Scale – Family Functioning. A Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to analyse the pre- and post-data. Qualitative outcomes indicated changes in the categories of child functioning, caregiver functioning, and extended family functioning, whilst child-focused processes remained dominant but changed in intensity and valence following SBFT.     

‘COVID taught me…’: Examining child-radio productions in the COVID-19 pandemic

Framed by critical literacies, the author adapted ethnographic methods to virtual spaces to examine radio as an alternative way to enhance adult understanding of children's COVID-19 experiences. Drawing on a subset of child-produced radio segments from March 2021, she foregrounds how children in an extracurricular program strategically used radio to share their pandemic experiences with their community. Supplemented by 5 months of virtual observations, she identified how child-DJs used radio to share how—through the COVID-19 pandemic—they cared about and for their community. Ultimately, she argues radio is one tool for coming to know children as community change agents.     

The unequal impact of Covid-19 on the lives and rights of the children of modern slavery survivors,children in exploitation and children at risk of entering exploitation

This article discusses the unequal impact of Covid-19 on the lives of the children of survivors of modern slavery, child victims of exploitation and children at risk of exploitation in the UK. It draws on research that has analysed the risks and impacts of Covid-19 on victims and survivors of modern slavery. It explores how pandemic responses may have hindered these children's rights to education, food, safety, development and participation and representation in legal processes. It suggests that the pandemic should be used as an impetus to address inequalities that existed pre-Covid-19 and those that have been exacerbated by it.     

Advocacy by Proxy: The Children's Lobby in American Politics

This essay considers the organizational and political activity of the children's lobby in the United States with reference to four issues: how advocacy groups emerge and are sustained, how various groups are legitimated, how advocates participate in constructing a children's agenda, and how advocates respond to changes in this agenda. The essay argues that this group sector has mobilized and become stagnant in response to various structures of opportunity. Second, it suggests that children's representation evolves over time, with various facets of the issue gaining currency in turn. Attuned to these changes, advocates shift their collective focus to emerging concerns, or fail to remain viable. Third, public interest groups scramble to differentiate their programmatic foci, sources of revenue, ana services offered to members. Fourth, the essay considers how their ability to navigate these organizational concerns determines the ability of children's advocates, and of public interest groups more generally, to provide representation for otherwise marginalized groups in American politics.